Souls Saga: Book One - Love Your Enemy
by wolfrunnerable12
Summary: Claire Evans and Coal Death. The Academy's two biggest enemies are paired up as weapon and meister on accident, when they take down a kishin one night. But how can these two hot headed students hope to get along with each other? Unknown to them, there is a very familier danger lurking around the Academy and waiting for the right moment to sink her fangs into the depths of the city
1. About

This is a specially requested story. Some of you guys wanted to see a Coal/Claire thing, so I hope this is to your liking. It's not like Bringing Up Weapons and Meisters was. It's a bit different and...while Cera, Tsuna, Tessa and Chris may be in it...Coal and Claire are the main focus.

Claire Evans is a hot headed, out going, promising young weapon without a meister and a student at Death Weapon Meister Academy. But then again being the daughter and only child of Soul Eater and Maka Evans it's not so surprising. She's proud to be own her own and fight her own battles. After all...with a weapon father and mester mother, even without a meister she's a tough opponant.

Coal Death is a promising young meister, who is more the calm, dignified type. No wonder considering he is the son of the Grim Reaper Death the Kid and Elizabeth Thompson. Making the boy a Grim Reaper himself. He doesn't have a weapon partner, but that suits him just fine much to both his parent's and aunt's frustration. He's explained to his parents and aunt that he'd rather work alone, since he doesn't believe using a weapon would change anything significant during a battle against a witch or kishin.

Two hot headed kids from legendary families...

So what happens when Coal tries to save Claire from a kishin and the two end up defeating the creature, thus causing them to begrudgingly team up?

What happens when their feelings change from hating the very mention of each other's name, to something else?

What will happen when Claire is taken hostage by a young witch with certain familier abilities?

Can Coal make it to his weapon partner in time?

Or will the young Grim Reaper be to late?


	2. Prolouge - Flashback

**So did you guys like the about then? I hope you did, because I am very excited about this story! Hehe! Please remember that comments and reviews are welcome from members of , as well as guests. Anyway, remember (for those of you that read it) in Transcend the Soul it was mentioned that Coal and Claire had a very strong bond and relationship with each other? Yeah well...here's why. **

**DO NOT MENTION Crona! Crona isn't in my stories, for the mere fact that I'm not sure who I would pair him/her with. Yes, technically since I go by the anime, I consider Crona a guy. But all the same...NO Crona TALK OR PESTERING PLEASE!**

A bright white light surrounded Claire, as the weapon transformed back into her human form and collapsed onto the ground. She was breathing hard and shivering, all though she was braking out in a cold sweat all over her arms and face.

"Claire!", in an instant Coal knelt down next to his partner and fixed her into a sit up position as he supported her back and held her up. He placed a hand on her forehead and his golden yellow eyes narrowed darkly. _'Damn that witch! It's the poison, fighting in her weapon form only sped up the effects. At this rate if Claire doesn't get help soon...', _the young Grim Reaper refused to finish the thought. He wasn't going to let that happen to her! He was a Grim Reaper like his father after all! He was death! And as such Coal wasn't going to loose the girl in his arms so easily. He'd make sure of it. He made Beezlebub appear and picked Claire up after getting a good grip on her.

As Coal walked over to the skateboard, Claire opened her blood red eyes and looked up at the young Reaper. "C-Coal? Where are we going? What about -?"

But Coal cut the ashy blond weapon off, "Pipe down Claire." His voice was firm but gentle all the same, "Don't talk okay? The poison is spreading quicker now, we need to get you back to Death City and to Maka fast. She'll be able to fix you up good as new in now time flat. Just hang on tightly to me and focus on your breathing alright. You'll be okay. I promise I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

Claire smiled and buried her head into the young Reaper's shoulder, "I know.", the weapon closed her cimson eyes and clung to to Coal tightly.

Coal steped onto the skateboard and headed back to Death City and the Academy as fast as he could, Claire still hugged to him in a tight, protective manner. The hoovering purple witch soul completly forgotten, not that the Reaper cared about it anymore. His partner was more important anyway.


	3. Stubborn Children

**Yes I did and that was just a flashback. I'm not going to reveal who the witch is yet, that would completly ruin the surprise. I'm also not going to tell you if Claire makes it or not. Sorry if it's bothering you or something. But look at the bright side! You know whoever this witch is, they die! DING DONG THE WICKED WITCH IS DEAD! LOL.**

**Coal's POV~**

I ran a hand through my black hair and crossed my arms sighing. I stood in the Death Room facing my father, mother and aunt. Had they really interupted me heading to class for this? To pull me aside like a child and lecture me yet again? Not to mention they were lecturing me on a subject that I refused to surrender to them in. The thought of finding a suitable weapon partner to work with.

"Coal you can't keep putting it off like this.", that was father glaring at me as he spoke in a firm, dark tone, "You're a Grim Reaper. Even if you weren't, you would still be a meister and you'd still need a weapon. Weapons and Meisters aren't ment to not be teamed upwith each other. That's not how it works."

"Stop it dad, we've beeen throught this how many times already? But you, mom and Aunt Patty won't listen to anything I say.", I replied irritated again, "I don't need or want a weapon partner. Like you said I am a Grim reaper. I don't need to be dependent on a weapon. I can handle a kishin or a witch on my own."

My father looked like he was about to yell at me, when my mother steped in. She placed a hand on dad's shoulder, "Kid calm down. Let me handle this. We don't need a fight between two Grim Reapers after all."

Father sighed and looked at my mother nodding, "Fine Liz. I'm actually at a loss anyway, you can try."

My mother nodded and looked at me with her kind, but serious, blue eyes. "You remind me a lot of Kid when we were students here.", she told me, "Not just in looks, but attitude too. Did I ever tell you about when your aunt and I saved your dad's but?"

This cought my attention and I met my mother's gaze. Was that a hint of child-like mischief in them I saw? "No.", I told her.

"Well long story short, the three of us were sent on a mission to some abandoned, creepy old village where every citizen disappeared without any reason or trace.", my mother began, "Your father told Patty and I to wait outside the village, while he went in by himself. Since we didn't know what had made the villagers disappear. After he had been gone awhile, Patty and I walked into the village after him and saving his but from a pair of freaky clowns. After that the three of us worked together to defeat the clowns and complete the misssion." After a minute, "The point is Coal that, a weapon is more then just a tool to help in battle against a kishin or witch, it's a person that you can count on to watch your back all the time. Even if you don't think you need it, then your weapon partner will be there for you. It's somebody you can trust and confide in."

I stared up at my mother in sileence, taking in every word she said. After a few minutes I sighed and turned around to walk out of the Death Room, "I have to go. See yeah later.", I waved back to the trio.

"So stubborn.", I heard my father say behind me, but I didn't add anything.

I headed through the halls and outside, when I noticed a large crowd of cheering students and loud yells coming from the center of the human ring. I forced my way through the crowd untill I reached the front inner part of the ring of students to watch the fight going on. Once I stoped, my eyes narrowed and I glared at the two combatents in the center of the circle. Two weapons were standing there taunting each other, to try and get some kind of reaction from the other. The first was some kid named Alex. He was a knife and had messy dark brown hair and green eyes...not to mention he as a total idiot from what I had observed of him before. Sighing I looked at he other weapon and my smirk became an annoyed frown.

The second weapon was as reconizable as my father was, and bore the same number of resemblences to both her parents as I did to mine. The ashy blond hair done up into two pigtails, giving her a childish, innocent appeal. The blood red eyes glinting with laughter. The tight jean capris with the yellow long sleeve shirt and the black corset over the shirt. The thick red hairband with the black zig zag lines along both side edges.

Claire Evans. Daughter of Maka and Soul Eater Evans, some of mom's and dad's close friends and teamates.

Of course...

**Claire's POV ~ **

I stood outside the Academy with my arms crossed and grinning at the figure in front of me. All around us there was a ring of students watching us with anticipaton clear on their facial features. I swear they reminded me of a bunch of kishin moving in on their next targets. But I didn't care. I liked the audience, I was used to attention like this. "You really are stupid aren't you Alex? You really think you can beat me in a fight like this? Has your epic failures before tought you nothing?"

The guy in front of me was a blade weapon like me, a knife to be more exact actually. He had short dark brown hair that he always liked to slick back like a show off. His eyes were a bright green, a too bright bright green that is. I was partical to a soft dull olive green like my mother's eyes myself. His black shirt was tight across his chest to show off his muscles and his jeans were long and a dirty dark blue. He was arrogant, hot headed and stupid. I couldn't stand the guy!

"Shut up Claire!", Alex snaped at me and transformed is arm into a dark grey knife blade, "You think you're so cool just because you're Soul and Maka's kid! Time to show you that you don't rule the Academy!"

I laughed and shook my head smirking at him, "The fact that Maka and Soul are my parents proves that I'm cool. But if you want more proof, then let's get this show on the road. Unless you're scared that is.", I taunted the other weapon. It was almost too easy to get a reaction out of the guy, it was sad really.

"You're dead Claire Evans!", Alex yelled and ran at me, brandishing the knife blade to strike down at me.

I sighed and held up my arm to block the on coming attack. Metal clashed against metal, as his knife blade met my scythe blade and stoped cold. "I'm dead am I? Well. We'll just have to see about that now won't we? If you can't go through with such a simple attack, then I'm not going to be the dead one. You should have stayed with your meister where you belong!", I snaped and shoved back away from Alex. At the same time I kicked out and sent him skidding backwards.

He got up and charged at me again, slashing at me from the side this time.

I cought sight of the blade heading for me and shook my head, this guy was all talk and muscle. Not a shread of actual thinking anywhere. ""You're not going to beat me with such an elementry schoolyard move Alex!", I laughed and sprung into action. Unlike some students like Alex, I was one of the lucky students at Death Weapon Meister Academy that had a weapon parent AND a meister parent. Meaning, while I was a weapon and most of my traning focused around that, I had the speed, reflexes and endurance of a meister in my human and partically transformed forms. A trait that I often used to my advantage.

When Alex came at me again I droped to the ground and kicked out at the brown haired weapon in a fluid, rapid movement. I was just in time to duck under the blade and the bottoms of my feet met with my opponants lower abdoman. The force of the kick was a little rougher then I had ment to give, causing Alex to spit up a bit of blood as I knocked the wind out of him. But I wasn't worried about the guy. It wasn't like he was going to die from it or something after all.

Alex skidded backwards across the cobblestones and came to a stop laying flat on his back.

"And people think I'm stubborn?", I jeered down at Alex with a smirk.

The crowd cheerd loudly, pleased with the fight and the unavoidable outcome of the match. But something unerved me a bit, I felt a hard gaze directed right at me and spun around to look behind me. There, dead center in front of a group of gossiping girls, was the one person I absalutly hated. I couldn't stand the guy and he couldn't stand me. We both knew this for a fact and kept away from each other, it workedout well normally. We still had a few confrontations now and again...but nothing like a full on fight. The black haired meister's golden yellow eyes narrowed and held my narrowed blood red gaze.

Coal Death. Son of Lord Death, in other words Death the Kid, and Elizabeth Thompson. A Grim Reaper. He had the same kind of heritage as I did only reversed, with a weapon mother and meister father. We grew up together with our parents being close friends and teamates and all. But Coal and I never really got along. No matter how much our parents tried to push us together, we always fought them and pulled back. Our excuse...there as no way our souls would be compatiable with each other.

"CLAIRE EVANS!"


	4. Unexpected Partners

**Yes the title is a bit of a play on words, if you wanted to say that. I'm sorry if this feels rushed, but I have some bad guys developing scenes planned, as well as romance development scenes and a couple road blocks for Coal and Claire planned to. I figured..since these chapters are somewhat easier for me to dish out then Transcend the Soul, that I would get this one out of the way and give you guys something to read while I work on TTS. Happy Saterday everyone and happy reading!**

**Claire's POV ~ **

**"CLAIRE EVANS!"**

The yelling caused me to tear my gaze away from Coal and freeze to the spot. Oh crap! I didn't need to turn around and look at who was walking over to me right now, as the crowd of students started to all but scatter. I could tell just by the angry, female voice who it was.

I spun around to face a women coming towards me in a nurse uniform. Her olive green eyes that were useually so gentle, were currently filled with rage and focusing on not hitting me on the head with a book. Her long ashy blond hair like my own, up in a neat bun on the top of her head. It was mother Maka Evans, a well-known Scythe Meister and graduate of the Academy.

"Hey mom.", I said sheepishly, as I rubbed the back of my head nervously and started to back up away from her. Of course I didn't expect to bump into somebody else.

I looked up into a pair of eyes just as red as my own and took in the guy's snow white spiky hair. He raised an eyebrow at me and gave me his signature toothy grin.

I groaned as I looked up at my father, Soul Evans. This was just not my day at all, "Hey dad."

"Anouther fight Claire? Thats the third one in a week now, or is it the fourth? I lost count!", my mother snaped at me, after both my parents lead me to the nurse office and closed the door behind us. There I was bombarded with the expected lecture yet again. I was seeing this room quite a bit lately, and not as a patient either. It was driving me crazy!

I rolled my eyes and sat on the edge of one of the beds, glaring at my parents. "Yeah but Alex was asking for it. He's so cocky and annoying, always challenging me and thinking he's stronger because he has a meister. I don't need a meister.", I sighed annoyed, refusing to look at my parents.

"You are aware of how the realationship between a meister and weapon works, right Claire?", my dad raised an eyebrow at me and crossed his arms. His white hair covering his eyes a bit.

"Yeah of course.", I replied not getting where this was going, "The meister uses the weapon in battle against a witch or kishin and then the weapon eats the soul." I shrugged this off like it was no big deal. Why where my parents asking me such a basic, simple question? I didn't get it.

My dad sighed and shook his head.

Mom just sighed, "You are so much like Soul some times.", she looked at my dad and grinned, "Which can be both a good, and a bad, thing."

My dad rolled his eyes, "The realationship between a weaepon and a meister is a lot like...say the realationship between a guitar and an amplihpier. Think of the weapon as the amp, the meister as the guitar and the sound is the soul wavelength."

"A guitar and an ampliphier?", I asked confussed still.

Mom nodded, "Yeah. A guitar on it's own can only make so much noise when it's on it's own, meaning a meister can only produce a soul wavelength that is so strong on their own. But when you plug a guitar into an amp, the noise is much louder then before. Meaning that when a meister passes their soul wavelength to a weapon, the weapon enhances them and passes them back."

"Thats what makes tecniques like Genie Hunter and Witch Hunter possible.", my dad added, sticking his hands in his pockets, "Now do you get it."

No. Not really.

I smiled and nodded, "Yeah I get it.", I nodded. I could feel my dad's suspicious, unsure gaze. Luckily my mom nodded and dismissed me. I hugged both of them and waved good bye, telling them I'd meet them back at the apartment.

**Coal's POV ~ **

After the fight and Soul and Maka had lead Claire off back into the Academy, I sighed and decided to do a bit of reading. After a few hours in the libraryI became board and headed home. On the way to Gallow's Manor though, I froze and looked down a dark allyway. My eyes narrowed as I looked down the ally. Something didn't feel right. I didn't know exactly what was wrong, but something just wasn't right.

Sighing I gave in and held out my hand, causing a skateboard with a skull on the underside of it to appear. I steped on it and took off down the dark ally, using my soul preception abilities as a guide. I streached them out as far as I could and it didn't take long for me to pick up on the wavelengths of two souls. One of the souls was a dark red color and distorted for some reason. It had to be a kishin, no doubt about that. Kishin souls were typically red and distorted like this, but that wasn't what took me by surprise. What surprised me as that the other soul was all too familier. A bright pale white with what looked like pigtails on either side.

Claire?

I stoped at the end of the allyway and found the scene to be exactly what I had thought. The white soul with the pigtails was definetly Calire and the red soul was definetly a kishin.

The ugliest kishin I had ever seen too.

Long fang-like teeth and claws made out of metal. The things legs were over streached and it was fairly tall...more then six feet by the looks of it. Saliva driping from it's mouth... I hadn't planned on really doing anything. The way Claire acted and fought, she could easily take care of herself. I turned and was about to leave, when I froze.

What was I doing?

I couldn't just leave her there, although Claire was a perfectly capable hot headed weapon.

Cursing myself, I launched the skateboard out of the allyway and it slamed into the kishin's face.

The kishin staggered and I calmly walked out of the allyway, focused on Claire.

Claire got over her initial shock and glared at me, "What the hell are you doing here Coal!?", she demanded.

"What does it look like Evans? Helping you. Now transform and get over here, so we can take this freak down and get home already.", I sighed, glancing at the kishin that was starting to get up again.

"No way in hell! I don't need some arrogant Grim Reaper to save my but from a kishin! And I ddefinetly don't need some meister ordering me around like a pet!", Claire snaped at me. Figures she was going to give me a hard time about this.

"Look Claire.", I eased my voice so it was calmer. Friendlier then before and tried using her name this time. "I'm not saving your but okay? I'm not trying to be your meister, and even if I was I wouldn't order you around period. I'm trying to get us to cooperate so that we can take this kishin down and get on with going home. Now are you with me or not, because that thing is starting to gain conciousness again."I nodded my head in the direction of the kishin coming to and getting back on it's feet.

I knew Claire was hesitant but she looked at the kishin and nodded to me. "Fine.", she said, "But this is the one and only time Coal. Don't get used to it." The ashy blond weapon glowed the same pale white light as her soul and zoomed to my out streached hand.

In seconds I was holding the pole of a scythe. I examined the weapon with a carefull eye and noted the blood red eye up by the blade. The blade it's self was seperated into two parts by a black zig zag line. The upper half of the blade was black and the lower was silver. "So this is your full weapon form?", I saked as I twirled Claire around to get a feel for my new temporary weapon, "Jeez you're light."

Claire appeared on the scythe blade, "What the hell is that supposed to mean Coal!?", she yelled at me clearly angry.

I only laughed, "Nothing. You're so easy to tick off, it's almost funny."

Claire's eye twitched, "Whatever. Can we please focus on old ugly please?"

I nodded, "Yep." I faced the kishin and held Claire over my shoulder, the thing now back on it's feet and growling at us. "Let's do this Claire.", I grinned.


	5. My Enemy Is My Partner

**Welcome back you guys! So. The last time we saw Claire and Coal, Claire had just transformed into her complete weapon form and temaed up with Coal to fight a kishin. Let's see what happens when they fight their first kishin together for the first time!**

**Coal's POV ~ **

When Claire landed in my hands, I wasn't expecting her to be so light. So easy to swing over my head and rest accrosss my shoulders. The sensation was unlike anything I had ever felt before. The scythe was light as a feather, despite it's large size and the fact that you would think it would weight the same as it did as a human. The black and silver blade was sleek and I felt a warm, tingling sensation run up my arm and connect to my heart when I first grabed her and spun her above my head.

I felt like I suddenly understood the hot headed weapon. Like we were ment to be together...we just fit.

I felt powerful holding the weapon, even though I was a Grim Reaper like my father. I didn't think we could defeat this kishin, I knew we could. I knew we could take on anything that came our way...kishin or otherwise.

So this was what is was like to hold a weapon...

"Coal! Wake up!"

Claire's yelled snaped me out of my reverie and I looked up just in time to see the kishin running at me with his claws out and mouth agape. It's horrid breath hot and sickining. I crouched and leapt up into the air, before fliping and landing a few feet away from the monster. This thing was going to go down hard!

"Kishin! In the name of the Grim Reaper your soul belong to us!", I narrowed my eyes at the kishin to focus in in it. Drowning out everything but the kishin in front of me and the surprising warm, reassuring white glow of Claire's soul. "Let's go Claire!", I yelled and leapt at the growling kishin.

The kishin growled back at me and leapt forwards, but I was ready as I slashed Claire across it. I heard the kishin scream out in agony as Claire's blade tore through it's skinny hide like it was mere tissue paper.

I landed neatly back on the cobblestone street, with Claire in hand.

The kishin slamed into the pavement behind us, a pool of freash crimson blood forming around it's temporarily unmoving body. But the slash wasn't enough. The kishin forced itself to stand up again and glared at the two of us, blood flowing freely from the near perfect slash in it's side.

"Damn! It wasn't enough of a cut!", I hissed irritated that our first slash only injured the kishin.

Claire appeared on the side of the scythe blade, "So what?! We've weakend it, so now make sure you finish it off this time Coal. Simple as that."

I grinned nodding, before looking up to see the kishin charging us. I sighed and simply held the weapon out to the side and side steped the kishin. Thus causing the thing to errupt in a cloud of black ribbons and leaving behind its floating red soul.

**Claire's POV ~ **

In the end I kind of felt sorry for the mindless kishin, as I transformed from my weapon form into my human form again. But when I grabed the red glowing soul in my hand and placed it in my mouth, all pity for the creature Coal and I just defeated was lost instantly. It had made the concious choice to hunt humans and turn itself into a kishin in the first place. Coal and I were just doing our job by killing it.

The soul tasted exactly like the way dad had discribed to me when I first discoverd I was a weapon like him. When I found out I was a scythe like him. The soul didn't really have a flavor like normal food did, but I liked the chewy, slimy feeling for whatever reason. That was when something clicked in my head, causing me to turn around and face Coal with a neautral-as-possible look. "I guess I should say thanks for the help.", I said in a monotone, "You know...I hate to admit it but your not a bad meister after all. For a Reaper anyway."

Coal smirked at me, "Well, you're a pretty cool weapon and you're welcome. Academy students protect their own...right?" He held out his hand to me, "But it was only a one time thing, remember?"

I raised an eyebrow at him for a minute, crimson red met golden yellow and we held each other's gazes. There was something wrong with this picture that I couldn't place. What had happened when Coal held me in my weapon form exactly? I had no idea what the meister felt, if anything when he grabed me. But I know for a facct that I sure did.

As soon as Coal raped his hand and grabed me from the air, an intense but soothingly warm sensation shot up and filled me to what felt like braking point. I had only ever transformed comepletly into my wapon form when I was first getting the hang of my transforming abilities. After that I only transformed fully into a scythe to humor or humiliate some stupid guys that thought they could be my meister. Of course they always recieved a nasty shock, literally, when they cought me signaling that we were incompatiable. It was nothing like the warm, safe, powerful sensation I got when Coal wielded me in my weapon form. Nothing like that at all. The two instances didn't even come close!

Finally I gave in and shook hands with Coal, "Yeah I guess we do. But you're right about the one time only thing...I don't need a meister and you don't need a weapon right? And don't think we're going to be best pals just because we totally kicked that kishin's sorry butt just now either."

"Whatever you say Evans.", the Grim Reaper replied, laspsing back into his annoying, normal indifferent demenor and earning a hard look from me in front of me. He was about to turn and leave back to Gallows Manor, when he stoped at the sight of five people standing in my way. Five familier adults.

I looked up at the five new arrivels too.

Mom, Dad, Aunt Patty, Aunt Liz and Uncle Kid all looked at us laughing slightly.

Aunt Patty walked over to me winking and wraped one arm around me and the other around Coal, to draw us close together. "Aww! You two are so cute together! You two make the perfect pair!", the pistol laughed, looking from me to Coal and back to me again.

I heard my chorus of, "WHAT!?", combine with the Reaper's.

Dad raised an eyebrow at me, "You two do realize that you just collected your first kishin soul and that you're now offically Meister and Weapon now right?"


	6. Make It Work

**Hey guys and thanks to all my readers, especially thise that posted reviews. Seeing that you all are reading this, is whats making posting new chapters up worth the effort and time. Anyway, so what's going to happen now that the two biggest rivels at Death Weapon Meister Academy are partners? Let's see!**

**Claire's POV ~ **

"AHHHHH!", I yelled and stomped my foot down on the polished Academy floor in frustration. It had been three days since Coal and I defeated the kishin together, three days since we collected our first kishin soul and three days since we became partners. I already couldn't stand it!

Beside me a girl about a year older then me glanced at me raising an eyebrow in worry. "Are you okay Claire? You've seemed...um...stressed and on edge for the past three days. Something wrong?", she asked me as she tucked the aqua strand of hair by her face behind her ear. She was a bit taller then I was, a bit more developed and had long raven dark hair. Well...that was minus the single aqua streak on one side by her face anyway. Around her neck was a star-shaped pendent on a fine silver chain and she bore a tatoo of a star on her upper exposed shoulder.

It was Tsuna Star. A meister, my best friend and the daughter of mom and dad's best friends: Tsubaki and Black Star.

Tsuna was the only other student at Death Weapon Academy who parents also happened to be partners with each other. Her mother, Tsubaki, being her father's Weapon Partner. Exactly like in Coal's case.

"I'm fine Tsuna.", I hissed as we walked down the busy Academy halls together, "I just can't believe I'm stuck with that arrogant Reaper from now on! All because he was actually able to weild me in a fight and we defeated our first kishin! After letting so many guys that think they can be my meister, try to be my meister and epically fail each time...a freak chance comes along where I have to pair up with someone, and he shows up right on cue! Are my parents trying to kill me off or something!?"

I hear Tsuna laugh and stop my rant to look at her. "Oh come on Claire, it can't be that bad. You told me the next day that you felt something when Coal held you in your weapon form. Right? Or was that some bit of sarcasim?"

"So what if I had a warm and fuzzy feeling when Coal used me in that fight against the kishin? That doesn't prove a thing.", I hissed back, avoiding my friend's twinkling, knowing dark amber eyes.

She knew I was down-grading the feeling I had when Coal held me that night in my weapon form. It wasn't as simple as a warm and fuzzy feeling. It was more then that...like we just fit. Like the two of us were spacifically made for each other, that we were ment to be partners. Shivering at the thought, I allowed the familier obnoxious male voice to pulle me out of my thoughts.

"Hey Evans!"

Here we go again...

**Coal's POV ~**

Three days after defeating the kishin. Three days after being partnered with Claire and I was lost in thought as I walked down the Academy halls. I ignored all the friendly hellos and flirtatous giggles from every few girls that quickly glanced away from me in embarassment. I didn't know why it was bothering me so much, but for some reason I couldn't get that fight three nights ago out of my head.

The feelings that had flooded my senses when I grabed Claire in her weapon form, hit me rather hard one after anouther as I walked on down the halls.

Powerfull and unstopable, despite the fact that I was a Grim Reaper...weapon or no weapon. I felt stronger then I had before that I could remember.

But power wasn't the only thing I felt, I also felt something a bit milder in nature. It was like a warm fuzzy feeling, but stronger. When I grabed Claire, it felt like a wave hit me hard and all of a sudden I understood the weapon. It felt like I knew Claire so well that we would be able to communicate accuratly, without saying a single word outloud even once. I knew why she got into so many fights. I understood her cocky, violent atitude and shrugged it off as nothing but who she was. I felt connected to her by invisiable ropes.

I felt relaxed and focused, the surprisingly warm white glow from her soul a rewarding reassurence that everything was going to work out. That we could and would defeat the kishin or anythign that stood in front of us.

Why was that?

And what was it about the scythe that made me feel these things?

Did my new weapon partner perhaps feel these, or similier, feelings as well?

What did it all mean?

It wasn't long untill I was drawn out of my thoughts by an all too familier scene ahead of me down the hallway. The only difference was, instead of a large gathering of students, now there were only three confronting each other. Alex, Claire and anouther older looking girl standing beside Claire and who looked like she was trying to diffuse the tention between the two weapons. It took a little longer then normal, but eventually I reconized the girl as Claire's friend Tsuna Star...Black Star's and Tsubaki's kid. And it looked like Tsuna could use a bit of help trying to calm the two hot headed weapons down a bit.

"So. Ms. I-Don't-Need-A-Meister ended up finding one anyway hunh?", Alex sneered at Claire, "What happened Evans? I thought you were a tough weapon like Soul? Where's you're now?"

Tsuna held onto Claire's arm tightly and tried to pull her away, but Alex kept egging the scythe on.

I narrowed my eyes on the knife and walked up casually behind Tsuna and Claire, "Hey Claire. Tsuna.", I said in a calm, loud voice...thus succesfully captering the hall's attention as I stoped behind the two girls. I cocked my head at the scythe, "I've been looking everywhere for you Claire. Soul and Maka want to give us a special training lesson.", I leid smoothly and was carefull to hold myself in a dignified mannor. I didn't like Claire yeah, but we were still partners and partners did things like this for each other.

Tsuna looked up at me a little surprised at my sudden appearence.

Claire narrowed her red eyes at me, "Coal? What are you talking about?", she asked me suspicious.

Alex laughed, "Awww. What's the matter Evans? Have you really become so soft that Lord Death's son has to pretend to be your meister and babysit you?!"

That did it...

Without either of us having to say something, there was a flash of bright white light and the familier warmth ran up my hand as Claire istantly transformed into a scythe and I grabed her out of hte air. The hall became dangerously silent as I held the sleek silver and black scythe blade at the frozen knife's neck. I held Claire with one hand, the other held up to prevent Tsuna from protesting our actions.

Alex eyes flicked nervously from the blade at his neck and back up to me. It finally clicked in his head that the bit about Claire and I being partners wasn't a ruse after all.

I kept my voice low, serious and threatening as I glared at the weapon in his human form. "If you ever so much as think about bothering my wapon partner again, then your next fight won't be just against Claire. And when that happens, this blade won't stop at the base of your neck!", I hissed at Alex.

Alex nodded in understanding, before the warm feeling left me and Claire transformed back into her human form with a smirk at Alex.

I wraped an arm around my partner's waist to draw her close, before lightly placing a guiding arm around Tsuna's shoulders and lead both girls away down the silent, shocked hall of students. When we were far enough down the hall, I released both girls and looked at Claire.

"You didn't have to do that you know.", Claire's voice wasn't agitated, but leval, "I kicked Alex's but once, I had no problem doing it again. I could have handled him on my own."

"Yeah but you would have gotten in trouble again.", I replied, "Besides...why waste your time and energy on an opponant that uses elemantrary schoolyard moves? He's not worth your time Claire."

I heard Tsuna giggle a little bit and Claire raised an eyebrow up at me.

I smiled nodding.

Claire smiled back in understanding.


	7. New Girl

**Hello everyone and welcome back! I think I'm going to start doing a couple shoutouts in the beginings of chapters now. It's a lot easier to get to people's questions, rather then through PMs. **

**KidsGirlAmmy513 - Thanks and I think I will continue! LOL**

**Anilylovesyouu - Then my goal has been accomplished!**

**Dia8Buyo - to my ever-loyal Soul Eater Fanfiction reviewer. :) Sadly my friend, Coal and Claire won't be going out for awhile yet. It's early, so they still don't like each other very much. Coal stoped the fight because, like it was mentioned in the chapter, that's what partners do for each other. The story is about how their realationship develops from hating each other, to weapon-meister relations and then it all congeals into where they realize they have much deeper feelings for each other. It's a journey/origion/coming of age-kind of story. **

**Claire's POV ~ **

After the confrontation with Alex, the three of us walked to class together. All three of us were EAT Class students...meaning combat ready students. We were the ones that did all of the heavy lifting fighting kishin.

The three of us walked into the classroom and stoped looking around in the doorway at our classmates. Our teacher, who also happened to be Tsuna's mother, turned and smiled at us warmly.

"Hello Coal. Claire. Tsuna. Come in and take your seats quickly. I have two important announcements to make before I start the class.", Tsubaki said nodding.

Tsuna smiled at Coal and I, before leaving us to sit beside her weapon partner Chris.

On instinct I grabed the Grim Reaper's wrist beside me and pulled him towards Chris and Tsuna. I sat beside my friend and heard Coal sit down on the other side of me. It was normal for partners to sit with each other and live with each other in Death City. Of course, since Coal and I both prefered to stay with our parents, I lived in the apartment with Soul and Maka. While Coal lived with Uncle Kid, Aunt, Liz, Aunt Patty and his causin Tessa at Gallows Manor.

"Allright everyine please settle down now.", Tsubaki said claping her hands to call us all to order, "As you are all aware a very special day is coming up for our school. April first, or better known as the day the late Lord Death founded our beloved Academy. All students and staff are invited and this is, fiirst and for most, a dance of course. Lord Death has asked me to remind you all to be on your absalute best behaviors."

And there was my warning, curtsy of a combination of my parents and Uncle Kid.

I knew that I wouldn't have a say in the matter of going or not...though I didn't have a real interest in going. It was jsut anouther lame excuse for the guys of the academy to act like complete and total idiots in front of us girls. Yuck! But I was an Evans. Tsuna, Tessa, Coal and I wouldn't have any other choice but to go because of our parents. At least I wouldn't be alone in my suffering though. I'd just hang out wth Tsuna and Tessa all night.

"But enough of that, we still have two and a half weeks untill the Foundation Day Eve Party. For now, I want all of you tpo join me in welcoming a new student to the class today. We are very glad to have her join us as a meister.", Tsubaki looked at the classroom door and waved for the new person to come in, "Come on in now dear so that I can introduce you."

A new student?

I looked up and narrowed my eyes at the girl that walked into the room.

**Coal's POV ~ **

I had been staring off into space, untill I heard Proffesor Tsubaki mention something about a new student. We hardly got new students at Death Weapon Meister Academy, so this was a special occasion in a way. Nothing major, but one to be remembered for sure.

I loked down at the new student now standing beside Proffesor Tsubaki to see that this new meister was a girl. She was an attractive girl with long raven black hair much like our teacher's hair and dark chocolate brown eyes. She was fair skinned and wore a figure-fitting robe-dress cross that I was not very familier with made of a dark blue silk-like fabric.

The new student smiled warmly around the room, "My name is Hana McCoy. Thank you, it's an honor to be here and to have you as a teacher Proffesor Tsubaki. I look forward to taking part in the class and getting to know all of you personally.", she bowed and that was it.

I could see all of the guy's eyes in the room transform into large light pink hearts instantly.

Well all the guy's eyes minus mine at any rate.

There was something that felt off about Hana that I found disturbing, though I wasn't sure what. I couldn;t find anything wrong with her appearence, and my soul preception painted her soul off a clear. She just seemed too sweet and respectfull to me. Too fake and not realistic enough. Like a snake almost that was lying in wait to strike at the most opportune moment.

Who was this new student at the Academy really?

And what did she want?

I felt myself shimmy closer to my partner beside me in a defensive way, as she past us walking up the steps to her seat.

The girl looked at me and smirked, batting her eyes in a flirty kind of way before going to sit behind me.

I glared at her and faced Proffesor Tsubaki as the Death Scythe started the day's lesson. The whole time I felt a pair of eyes on the back of my head, Hana's gaze on the back of my head. This was soo going to be a very long and tension-filled class.

**Sorry guys. I know that this was a fairly skimpy short chapter, but I'll swear to make it up to you. This was just supposed to be a filler chapter to introduce the new character. **


	8. Traitor Number One

**Welcome back you guys! So what did you think of our new student that joined the class just now? Sketchy? Annoying? Or are you guys just thinking 'Soooo what exactly is this Hana person's purpose exactly?' Anyway enough of that. Here's the new istallment and where the fun really begins!**

**Claire's POV ~ **

It's not like I didn't like the class, but I had never been able to pay attention to any kind of lecture for very long. Proffesor Tsubaki's current lecture on the different types of souls was one lecture I was finding boaring. I was a bit of an oddity according to Tsuna, Chris, Cera and Tessa. Somehow I could sleep through a whole lecture and still get at least half way decent marks in class. Either that or the top grade. Beside me both my meister and my best friend were giving the Death Scythe their complete attention and focus.

I had just started to fall asleep with my head on my arms, when our Proffesor spoke again and jolted me awake.

Tsubaki had recieved some piece of paper from the reception lady and nodded. She read the note before looking up, "Coal. Claire. Lord Death wants to see the pair of you in the Death Room right away. You both are dismissed from class."

This cought my attention instantly and I picked my head up. Why did Uncle Kid want to see Coal and I? The whole thing with Alex didn't come to anything...well aside from the threat of Alex losing his head anyway. So what could this be about? Regardless, I found myselfstanding up and walking silently out of the classroom with my meister.

I walked beside the Grim Reaper down the empty Academy halls towards the Death Room. "So.", I tried to start up a conversation, "What do you think your dad wants with us? You don't think this is about the whole threatening-to-take-off-Alex's-head-thing do you?"

Coal shook his head, "I don't think my father'll pull us out class for something as stupid as that.", he replied.

When we reached the large black door with the white skull on the front, I knocked on the door. We walked through the familier gullitine archway and stoped in front of the platform Uncle Kid stood on with Aunt Patty and Aunt Liz. It was wierd not seeing my parents or Uncle Black Star and Aunt Tsubaki with them at first. Then I remembered that my mom was the Academy's nurse. Not only that but aunt Tsubaki was still teaching our class, and my dad and Uncle Black Star were busy teaching the NOT classes. "Hey Uncle Kid, Aunt Patty. Aunt Liz.", I greeted the Grim Reaper and two twin pistols.

"You pulled us out of class dad.", said Coal, "Why?"

"Hello Coal. Claire.", the Grim Reaper grinned at us knowingly, "So. The two most stubborn students in teh Academy managed to find partners after all."

Coal and I rolled our eyes.

"Kid. The mission?", Aunt Liz prompted.

Our heads shot up instantly, the gun meister and weapons once again holding our complete combined attention. Mission?

"What mission exactly Uncle Kid?", I asked curious. partners for three days and Coal and I already were being sent on a mission? Tsuna and Chris had been partners longer then we had. So had Cera and Tessa...that was Coal's causin. So why did we get the mission after only being partners for three days?

"There's a Traitor in the city that needs to be driven out as soon as possible.", said Uncle Kid, "Before he becomes too much of a neausince."

"What's a Traitor?", I aksed glancing at my uncle. It asn't a term I was particularly familier with and, if Coal and I were going to be going up against it, then it was best to know what exactly this thing or person was.

"Just a human who causes havoc in the city to draw the Academy's attention. The only goal of a Traitor is to challenge Academy Students.", Aunt Liz replied crossing her arms, "They're realativly harmless since they're not weapons, kishin, witches or meisters. But they can still cause trouble, so we still have to deal with them accordingly. We normally send NOT students out, because they'll run by just the weapon transforming completly into his or her weapon form and the meister threatening the Traitor."

So our first mission was to drive off some idiot that wanted to challenge Academy students?

Too easy.

**Coal's POV ~ **

A mission? Well this was new to me. Out of all the things I had imagined my father wanted to speak to Claire and I about, sending my new weapon partner and I out on a mission right out of the gate was the farthest thing from my mind without question. But if there was something for the new pair of partners to do, then anything was better then being held up in the Academy classrooms all day like normal.

Right?

Besides, mom said that these so called Traitors were just mere neusiences...nothing dangerous that required any real fighting. Like a witch or kishin. Claire and I would be back in the Cresent Moon classroom within a matter of minutes and have the mission complete at the same time. "Allright, we'll handle this Traitor no problem.", I nodded with a boared tone, before turning to leave the Death Room. "Coming Claire? Let's get this over with already and get back to class.", I said without glancing at my partner.

"Yeah. The quicker the better.", I heard Calire's footsteps behind me, untill she had cought up with me and the two of us headed out into the city to find our target.

A few hours pass as we walk around Death City in search of our target but our efforts turn up empty handed. "Damn.", I hiss under my breath, "Nothing, not even with my soul preception. I thought dad said these Traitors liked to challenge Academy students. But there's no sign of anyone here other then us." Suddenly I froze for a moment before diving at my partner and slaming her to the ground, shielding her by pinning her flat against the cobblestone street. All just in time to avoid a rushing attack from blurry shadow figure.

"COAL!", I hear Claire yell, as I allowed her to get up.

I knew she was angry, but my attention was on the shadow-like figure standing a few feet in front of us.

"You move fast for a kid little boy.", the figure's voice was dark and came out in almost a warped hiss-like sound, "But you won't get so lucky from here on out."

"I take it you're this Traitor my father sent us to look for and drive out?", I chanced a guess. How could this be the Traitor that Claire and I were supposed to be looking for? Father had said that Traitors were nothing special...just normal humans thinking to challenge Academy students. All we had to do was intimaidate them and it should have sent this guy running for the hills. So then who was this guy really if not a normal Traitor like my father and mother had described?

The shadow figure laughed, "That's right boy, call me One. I'm going to be your worst nightmare!", he laughed in his snake voice before disappearing in a puff of black smoke again. Like that was really going to help. "Claire take my hand.", I reached out for my weapon partner, using my soul preception to scan the area around us.

"Okay, but is this guy really worth the effort Coal? I mean seriously?! It's like I don't even have to work for my meal...where's the fun in that?", she asked before she glowed and the sleek silver and black scythe was in my hand again.

I couldn't help but grin a little at the scythe's comment, as I calmed myself and focused my soul preception holding tightly onto my partner. Once I had located the Traitor with my soul preception, I jumped into the air and slashed down with Claire to yeild a burst of black ribbons and a floating red soul hoovering there in the air. "Well look at it this way. Are you really going to give up a free meal?", I asked the scythe.

Claire transformed and took the Traitor's soul in her hand grinning, "Hey, I'm not THAT picky now.", she said swallowing it.


	9. Resonance

**Hey everybody and welcome back! So all of you just met the first in a soon-to-be long line of enemies that Claire and Coal will have to face, before we get to our main bad guy person. Anyway! I really hope that all of you are enjoying this story, because it is sooo much fun trying to write this for all of you. Especially if you have read Transcend the Soul(which will be coming to an end here very shortly. :( ) Enjoy!~**

**Coal's POV ~ **

"Hey Coal something bothering you?"

I look up, brought out of my deep thoughts by the already familier female voice of my weapon partner walkng beside me. Claire's gaze, surprisingly, is shining with genuine concern for some reason. I raised my eyebrow, "I'm fine. Just surprised that you actually care enough to ask.", I replied.

Big mistake.

I recieved a quick hard slap to the back of my head and a seathing glare from the scythe, before she huffed and looked away from me. "Oh stop acting like you know everybody just because you're the son of the Grim Reaper. I'm your weapon in case you've forgotten idiot. It's in the job description to make sure my meister is okay and protect him or her.", she hissed.

I rubbed the back of my head with my hand gingerly, looking up at the girl. "What do you mean I act like I know everybody? I clearly don't know you, because I wasn't expecting you to freakin' hit me on the back of the head like that. Hitting your meister isn't in the weapon's job description, is it?", I winced when my hand ran over a peticular tender part of my skull.

"No it's not.", Claire replied hotly, "Well...not until a few seconds ago anyway. Now it is. I just added it!"

I rolled my eyes and sighed, this was going to be a seriously long hard partnership. "Lovely. A scythe that likes to smack people on the back of the head with her hand. What more could I ask for in the perfect partner?", and that was yet anouther mistake.

Anouther hard whack to the back of the head and seathing glare from the scythe.

"Would you knock it off with the slapping me upside the head already Claire!?", I finally yelled at her.

Claire crossed her arms and looked away from me, "Will you stop being such a know-it-all-spoiled-arrogant-idiot?!", she countered me. Then, "Just be glad tha I didn't use my scythe blade or something."

Claire and I were so into bickering with each other, that neither of us had any idea we had been standing in the Death Room doing nothing but arguing for the past three and a half minutes. Up on the platform my dad, mom, Aunt Patty and both of Claire's parents were just klind of staring at us blankly rolling their eyes and with smirks on their faces. We conitnued to bicker until my father finally cleared his thorught to get our attention, "If you two are finished now? How did the mission go?"

"We completed the mission father, but there is something we wanted to talk to you about. It's about the Traitor you sent us after...you sure you sent us after the right person?", I asked, raising an eyebrow at my father and ending the argument I was having with my aprtner at the moment.

My father looked at us suspisiously, "Yes, why? Did something happen in your fight agaisnt the Traitor we should know about Coal?"

"You said that these Traitors were no big deals, because they were just normal humans that liked to challenge Academy Students.", I said leaning against one of the pillars of the gullitine archway, "But the Traitor we faced wasn't just a normal human father. He could evade our attacks by becoming a cloud of smoke and reforming himself someplace else enterily."

I could tell that this unerved my and Claire's paerents, because they looked at each other for several long minutes afterwards. Why did our parents seem so nervous all of a sudden? Like they had never heard of this before? Surely if one Traitor could have some kind of ability like this then others could as well?

I looked at Claire to see if she knew what was going on, but of course she only shrugged her shoulders. She was as clueless as I was.

Finally my father looked back at Claire and I, "Then it's a good thing that we're starting your Soul Resonance lessons right away today. Soul? Maka?"

**Claire's POV ~ **

Coal and I fallowed Soul and Maka out of the Death Room and into the back area behind the school, we would have practiced in the front but we could distract classes going on too easily. There I stood beside Coal with my arms crossed as both of us faced my parents. I didn't see what the big deal about us learning to resonate our souls together was. I mean, Coal could already weild me pretty well for just being partners for a few days and we defeated a kishin and that Traitor on our own.

Maka and Soul stood oposite us with Soul's hands in his pockets and Maka standing up right and almost at attention. She pulled off her nurse's coat and tossed it to the side, before fixing her hair and eyeing my meister and I."Okay you two.", my mom started off, "Today start your lessons on Soul Resonance. Starting right now, the two of you will leave class at this time everyday together and meet Soul and me here for your lesson...which will last an hour to an hour and a half. Plus whatever practicing you two do on your own time."

"Since you two are still going to be getting the hang of things, you're not going to be allowed to use any of these techniques in battle just yet. It would be too dangerous untill you both have a bit more experience and control over it.", said my dad eyeing both Coal and I carefully. Then, "Claire, you're a scythe. Coal, you're a scythe meister. So that means that the tecnique you'll be able to pull off with your soul resonance is Witch Hunter. The form for Witch HUnter is different for each weapon and meister pair. For example...for Maka and me, it's more of a cresent moon shape. There's no telling what it'll lok like for you two untill you two pull it off."

This cought my attention, "Wait a minute dad. So..how exactly dose this whole soul resonance thingy work?", I asked. I had heard of my parents and their friends talk about moves like: Witch Hunter, Death Cannon and Shadow Star. But I had no idea what exactly what they were or what they looked like for that matter. I was honestly curious.

My parents looked at each other, before my dad spoke up. "Maka, it'll probly be best if we show them what we're talkign about. Just so they have a better understanding of it."

My mom nodded, "Yeah, good point Soul. Ready?", and she held out her hand.

With perfect timing, dad started to glow a bright blue light and shifted into his weapon form before being cought by my mom.

Mom spun dad above her head for a minute, before turning so that her back was to Coal and I. "Let's go! Soul Resonance!", both my parents shouted together, as they were outlined in a bright light.

I bit my lower lip in expectation and nervousness, inching ever so slightly closer to my meister beside me. Eyes fixed on my parents in front of me. I had never seen them fight before, let alone use a technique together. This was new to me.

I watched dad start to glow as his once normal red and black blade transformed into a large glowing cresent moon shape with a red eye in the center of it.

Mom raised him over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes at a tree a little ways away, before slashing forward in it's direction, "Witch Hunter!"

There was a blast of smoke and I found myself clinging to Coal, as he had his arms wraped around me to sheild me from the dust and bits of flying tree trunk. When the dust cleared, I loked up and saw dad had transformed back into his normal human form with his hands in his pockets beside mom. Both of them loked perfectly fine.

The tree...on the other hand...was slashed neatly clean in half.

"THAT,", my dad said looking at Coal and I, "Is Witch Hunter."

**LOL. I am so sorry you guys...but I needed to liven up Claire and Coal's trip to the Death Room some way. Since they are supposed to not be getting along at the moment, this is the silution that I came up with instead. Plus we are always seeing how Claire is like Soul and I thought it would be fun to add some more of the Maka-like tendencies to this chapter for a change. **

**I LOVE TO WRITE COAL AND CLAIRE AGRUING OR ANNOYING EACH OTHER!**

**Coal: Hey Wolf. Can I hit Claire next time?**

**Claire: Is Maka your mother?**

**Coal: Shut up Claire!**

**Claire: *slaps Coal on the back of the head again***

**Coal: HEY!**

**Me: Claire...save it for anouther chapter.**

**Coal: WOLF! Don't encourage her!**

**Claire: *reluctently sighing and crossing her arms* Fine, you're the writer after all Wolf...**


	10. A Long Day

_**I HEAR BY DEDICATE THIS CHAPTER TO Dia8Buyo!**_

**_NOTICE!_** Yes I did do this is a normal POV, just like one of my chapters in Fallen Souls...I am aware of this fact. Once again I had difficulty braking this scene up into two points of view, so I did a normal POV. The rest of the chapters from here on out will be from Coal's and Claire's points of views_**.**_

**Okay so. Yes Dia...this is dedicated to you, because this is where the CoalXClaire stuff starts to come into play. It's light at first, but then we get into the heavy emotional stuff. So I hope all of you guys enjoy this a lot! Also, I am sorry if this seems like anouther short one you guys. I was ina rush to get this posted and drag it out as much as possible...I hate short chapters.**

**Think of this as anouther transition chapter if you will. I just wanted to introduce the first sign of the on coming CoalXClaire stuff quickly.**

The first lesson with Maka and Soul had been a killer on both weapon and meister. Both adults unanimously agreed to send both students home, after trying...and failing...to maintain their soul resonance while exchanging their soul wavelengths enough times to build up enough power to pull off Witch Hunter.

Thinking that they could practice more on their own after a short rest, Claire fallowed her meister back to Gallows Manor and staggered into the empty manor building after the young Grim Reaper. The scythe collapsed on the couch moaning, "Finally some rest. I thought I was going to scream if Soul told me to transform into my weapon form one more time."

Coal looked at her as he waslked into the living room shortly after she did, "Transforming like that seriously takes that much energy? I thought you just had to picture what you wanted to transform into in your head or something."

"Well yeah, but it still takes some energy to transform...you do have to will the transformation after all.", replied Claire not looking at the Reaper, "Turning my arm into a scythe blade is something that requires very little energy and is pretty easy to do over and over again without getting tiered right away. But transforming into my full weapon form over and over is comeltly different. Now try adding maintaining that form AND enhancing the strength of a soul wavelength and it gets pretty old pretty fast.", she expalined to the meister.

"Need something?", Coal asked rasing an eyebrow at his partner as he stiffled a yawm himself. His arms were pretty sore too, now that he thought about it. Sure Claire was light as a feather in his grasp, but just like with Claire transforming completely into a waepon over and over again, Coal had his limits just the same. Even for a Grim Reaper.

Claire shook her ash blod hair and closed her eyes, as she rested her head up against the back of the black leather couch. "The only thing I need is rest.", she replied dully.

Coal looked at the weapon for a minute and walked over to her, before carefully sitting down beside her and moving to place a pillow under her head.

But the scythe had different ideas. Instead she placed her head on the Grim Reaper's lap and pulled her feet up onto the couch smiling in her sleep.

Coal looked at Claire now asleep with her head on his lap and let out a deep breath. He draped an arm over her protectivly and rested his head up against the back of the couch to stare up at the cieling above them. He sighed and closed his eyes, focusing on her soul wavelength with his soul preception to kep an eye on her and make sure she was alright.

The Grim Reaper soon passed out like that, still focusing his soul preception on the wavelengths of the sleeping scythe resting her head on his lap and his arm still drapped protectively over her form.

**Claire: Aww! I rememeber that! Remember Coal?**

**Coal: *looks away annoyed* Yeah, how can I not Claire? You woke me up with your screaming in my ear before you fell off the couch onto the ground. I thought I was going to be def or something.**

**Claire: *glares at Coal* SHUT UP IDIOT! THAT'S THE NEXT CHAPTER!**

**Me: *jumps in between them before Claire can hit Coal on the head* That's enough you two! You guys are ruining my fluffy scene!**

**Coal and Claire together: Sorry Wolf... *silence***


	11. Traitor Number Two

**Welcome back everyone! Sorry It took so dang long, but I kind of became obsessed recently with my Fallen Souls story. :) LOL. Anyway I am glad to present all of you with the next installment of Love Your Enemy!**

**Coal's POV ~**

"COAL!? WHAT THE HELL!?"

I sat bolt up right when I heard a rather loud _thump_ of something large hitting the ground and the pressure from my lap disappearing suddenly. I looked around rubbing the sleep from my eyes and found that I had fallen asleep in my living room. One question down and one to go...but not for very long.

I looked down at the space inbetween the black leather couch and the coffee table to see what had fallen and get my answer.

Claire's sitting there cross-legged in the space between the two pieces of funiture. She was rubbing the place where I guess her shoulder had either cought the ege of the table, or had connected with the ground to produce that loud _thump_ from earlier.

I kind of just stared at my partner blanky, as the fog cleared itself from my head bit by bit. All I remembered really was coming back to the manor with the scythe after a long training session with Soul and Maka on resonating to try and pull off Witch Hunter. I remembered how uneasy both our parents looked when we described the not normal Traitor we fought and thinking about that helped clear the fog a little quicker.

But not quick enough to registar a hand flying towards my head, let alone duck or reach out to grab it in time to prevent it hitting me.

_Slap_

"Again!? Seriously Claire. what is it with you and hitting me and yelling like that in my ear? Are you trying to make me def and beat my brains out women!?", I demanded trying to think about where my partner's knack for hitting me on the head came from. For some reason an imiage of Maka appeared in my head. Could my partner really have gotten her annoying violent tendencies from the warm hearted Academy nurse? I think back to how that tree was neatly split in half when Maka and Soul used Witch Hunter and cringed a bit. Yeah. That was a total possiblity.

Claire glared at me with heated red eyes and a slight pink flush to her cheeks, "You're not the one that woke up having slept with her head on her partner's lap!"

"Yeah you're right about that one.", I replied, "I was the one that woke up with his partner yelling in his ear and smacking him on the head again. You toatally had it worse."

The scythe went to slap me again, but this time I moved fast enough to intercept the attack and grabed her wrist mid strike. She struggled to get away, but I kept a too firm a grip on her wrist to prevent her from moving it. Our eyes locked with each other and Claire stopped her stuggling. I scanned the ash blond weapon carefully and actually paying attention to her for the first time. My grip locked around her wrist still and holding it up above our heads, ignoring how close we were.

Claire's distinctive red eyes and ash blond pigtails. Her lips set in a hard stubborn frown. The weapon's cocky, confident atitude and posture daring someone to challenge her. She was such a contradiction that I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. She looked...delecate, too delecate to be a weapon almost. I subconciously found myself loosening my grip around her wrist, afraid that too much pressure may cause the bones to snap. Even though I knew that Claire was a perfectly capable scythe, I felt protective of her all of a sudden.

"Coal? Arm going numb here and we're going to be late for class if we don't get a move on.", Claire's voice seemed to have soften a big when she was the one to brake the eye contact.

I droped mine and Claire's arm, but hesitated a little bit before finally releasing her wrist. "Yeah look, let's not tell anyone about this. Tessa has a knack for taking things the wrong way and spreding rumors pretty quickly.", I stood up off of the couch and offered a hand to my weapon partner to help her up.

"Yeah...why am I not surprised?", Claire grinned shaking her head, "Now let's hurry and get to class already...before Tessa notices we're not in class yet."

When Claire placed her hand in mine nodding, I closed mine over her's and pulled her to her feet before letting her hand go. We smiled at each other, before heading out of the door and off towards the Academy.

**Claire's POV ~**

I kept an eye on Coal as we walked through Death City, on our way to the Academy from Gallows Manor. I was silent as my thoughts drifted back to earlier at the manor. My eyes narrowed in focus. What had happened exactly that lead to me waking up with my head on my meister's lap the next morning? I couldn't place it.

I knew that our second training session with my parents had been a tough one and both of us were exhausted. My parents agreed to let us go for the day and Coal and I headed back to Gallows Manor, so that we could continue on our own after resting up a bit. I remembered reclining on the black leather couch and closing my eyes for a minute, but I never meant to fall asleep like that. I must have been more tiered then I thought I was.

But that still didn't explain how my head ended up on Coal's lap.

Did I shift at some point in my sleep without realizing it or waking up?

It was possible.

I shook my head thinking that I was starting to be rediculus. Falling asleep with my head on Coal's lap was nothing short of the result of being utterly exhausted from my parents drilling the two of us during our training session. Nothing more and nothing less.

I stoped and looked back when I noticded that the Gri Reaper had stoped and was glaring head of us with narrowed golden yellow eyes. "Coal? Now what's going on with you? Seriously, the way you've been acting lately is freaking me out.", I sighed and crossed my arms.

"Aw how cute.", a male voice cought me off gaurd, "A pair of bickering Academy Students, too easy."

It was a huge muscled man smirking at Coal and I ahead of us. I didn't need to think who this guy was or what he wanted.

Anouther Traitor, just like One.

"So anouther Traitor then?", I said allowing myself to be engulfed in white light as I shifted into my full weapon form and felt Coal catch me from mid air. "You know what pal, you guys are really starting to get annoying. Can't we do this after school? Or maybe during class? We kicked your buddy One's ass to the curb, so what's stoping me from swallowing your soul too?", I looked at him from the blade of the scythe. Now these guys were just starting to annoy me, but we defeated the first one so this guy shouldn't have been a problem.

The Traitor laughed, "I'm Two. One was nothing compared to me, it'll take a lot more then seeing souls to take my soul, weapon!", he laughed.

"You could be number Five-Thousend for all I care!", I yelled back at Two, "You're still going down hard and your soul is still going to be mine! Let's go Coal!"

"We will see about that little weapon.", Two smirked.

Coal tightned his grip on me and leapt into the air, before slashing me at Two and landing behind the guy with a perfect landing. He grinned, "Got him! these Traitors really are a fools mission, aren't they?"

But I wasn't paying attention to my meister, because all my attention was on Two behind us. Something just didn't feel right, even though I was sure Coal stuck that hit perfectly and we should have done some kind of damage to the Traitor. "Coal look!", I yelled gritting my teeth.

Sure enough, Two was laughing and turning towards us with not a single scratch on him. He looked just the same as he did before, minus his now bulkier appearing body anyway.

"Not a scratch...", Coal hissed under his breath, "But how. That attack was right on target. I was sure of it."

"Hahaha, you really thought an attack like that could stop me boy? I told you I'm not as weak as One was! I can harden the muscles in my body so that they become harder then stone, to defend against attacks.", Two laughed.

"Damn!", growled Coal, "Any ideas Claire?" He turned his golden yellow gaze to me and raised an eyebrow.

"I'm a weapon Coal, not a problem solver.", I retorted cooly, "But even if I was, this guy's ability throws all of our options out the window...minus one which we have yet to pull off."

"Witch Hunter!"


	12. Changes

**Sooo...where did we leave off again? Ah yes! Claire and Coal fighting Two. Now I remember, their attack failed and now we have a sudden appaerence from two of the cannons to help them. I love this chapter..especially Claire's bit. It's funny!**

**Coal's POV ~ **

_**"Witch Hunter!"**_

I dove out of the way, taking Claire in her weapon form with me, as Two exploded into the familier flurry of black smoke-like ribbons and leaving behind a floating red kishin soul. The only thing was that it wasn't mine and Claire's doing. It was sombody else's. I stood up as claire transformed back into her human form and stood next to me. In front of us stood the familier figure of Claire's mother, holding a scythe over her shoulder.

The weapon glowed a pale blue light and transformed, thus being replaced now by the tall muscled figure of Claire's father standing beside the ash blond meister. "Good thing Maka and I got to the pair of you in time. It looked like you two were having a bit of trouble with it.", Soul said eyeing both Claire and me with a raised eyebrow, "So I'm guessing the last Traitor you two fought was like that one?"

Claire and I both nodded.

"Yeah, but how did you know where to find us? Did my father send you guys after us?", I asked, still a little dazzled from seeing how quickly their Witch Hunter took out Two. It was a little more impressive seeing it being used against a kishin, then a tree.

"Soul Preception makes finding people pretty easy.", Maka explained, "But more then that, we knew something was wrong when Tsubaki reported that you two were missing from her class after she took roll. So what have you two been up to that made you miss the first half of class? Don't tell us that Traitor just appeared out of nowhere."

"What if that's exactly what happened mom?", Claire asked beside me, crossing her arms, "We slept in and ended up meeting Two on our way to the Academy."

I noticed Claire shoot me a look and the meaning was clear enough. _"Say anything about falling asleep together on the couch last night, and I'll kill you Coal!"_

_"Like I'm really going to say anything about that Claire. Use your head for once."_, I shot back with a look.

I figured Claire must have understood my silent response, because she raised an eyebrow at me and turned to look back at Soul and Maka in front of us. She started to fallow both the older scythe and scythe meister back to the Academy, before the four of us split to go our seperate ways: Soul and Maka went to talk to my father and Claire and I headed to the Class Cresent Moon classroom and appologized to Tsubaki before taking our normal seats. I could feel Tessa's smirk on me, but I ignored her and made it look like I was paying attention to Tsubaki's lecture.

In reality I was paying attention to Claire beside me and using my soul preception to keep tabs on her soul and it's wavelength.

The scythe was laying her head on her arms sleeping as useuall throughout the lecture. It would have made sense for me to wake my partner up so she didn't miss the lesson, but I just shrugged it off and ignored it. The ash blond weapon was a little odd. I noticed that she could sleep through a whole lecture and, somehow, still get a decent if not one of the higher grades in the class on the next exam. So I had resinged myself to only waking her up when it was time to go, if we were called to the Death Room and when we had to meet Soul and Maka for lessons resonating our soul wavelengths.

After a few minutes of keeping tabs on Claire from the corner of my eyes, I broke the trance and looked back at the weapon lecturing the class below on the platform. Why the hell had I all of a sudden become aware of Claire? No, that was't the right question. I was aware of Claire before we became partners, now it was just like I was constantly being pulled to her by some force of nature I couldn't controll even as a Grim Reaper. There was no way this was a spell of some kind...Claire was a weapon with a weapon and meister for parents. No witch relations. I sighed and shook my head. Looks like it was time for a little talk with my mother and father tonight after all.

When the end of class bell rang, I nudged my partner awake carefully, "Claire it's time to head home, looks like Soul and Maka gave us the day off from our resonance lessons today. Wanna head out?"

Claire lifted her head and yawned, before looking at me with her blood red eyes and fixing one of her pigtails. She shook her head, "Yeah, guess they figured Two was enough of a lesson for us or something. And nah Coal, you go ahead and I'll see yeah tomamrow morning. I have some questions for Professor Tsubaki about the lecture."

I eyed the scythe but shrugged it off, "Okay, see yeah Claire.", I waved and headed back towards Gallows Manor on my own. I would have walked with Tessa, sicne we live in the same house, but I was trying to avoid questions about Claire at the moment. I wanted to talk to my mother and father about it...not my causin.

At dinner I sat at my useuall place beside my causin Tessa, as we ate with my parents and aunt. It took a few minutesfor me to speak up because I wasn't sure about asking my mom and dad about their relationship. But I knew that they were the people to ask about this kind of situatioin. "Mom. Dad. You two are married, but mom is one of dad's weapons right? So how...?", I allowed my voice to trail off, not sure what to say.

"Coal is something the matter?", my mother looked at me with her warm blue eyes, "Why the sudden interest in weapon-meister romantic relationships?", she asked.

I shrugged, "I was just curious, that's all mom.", I replied a little too quickly. Was I really developing feelings like those for my weapon after all? Only one ay to find out. All I knew that, whatever feeling towards Claire this was, it wasn't the old contempt I once had for her before we became partners.

My dad raised a skeptical eyebrow at me, "In that case Coal, yes you're right. You're mom and I are partners. You're mom and Aunt Patty are twin pistols and I'm their meister." Was he trying to work things out? "But it's really not that surprising for weapons and meisters of the opposite gendars to become more then just partners or friends. Liz and I certainly aren't the only ones.", my dad added.

The cought my attention and I looked up abaruptly to eye my parents. "What do you mean dad?", I asked not thinking.

"Tsuna's parents are the same way, Tsubaki is Black Star's weapon.", my mother laughed a little bit smiling at me, "Then of course there is Soul and Maka. Maka is Soul's meister."

"What do you mean it's normal though and doesn't it effect you abilities to fight or soemthing?", I asked.

"Well most weapons and meisters live together Coal.", my father started looking at me with a slight grin, "But aside from that, just think of what they go through fighting kishin. It's only natural that they would develop a strong bond with each other outside the normal weapon-meister relationship. Even if it is just close friends. They're, literally, each other's life lines and are hardly seperated from each other at any given time. They can't reach their maximum potential without each other. I told you days ago Coal that weapons and meisters aren't meant to be alone. That and if anything it only makes us stronger as a team."

I thought about what my father said and it did make sense. I never saw my father without both my mother and aunt by his side and lately it felt like Claire and I waere constantly hanging around each other without even planning it. We just ended up together and neither of us bothered to question it. Being around the scythe felt as naturla to me as breathing or talking was.

"What do you mean being romantically together makes you stronger as a team dad? Wouldn't that be a weakness more then a strength?", I asked looking at my father.

My father only grinned, "You'll understand it for yourself at some point Coal."

"Coal, why not ask Claire to dance at the Foundation Day Eve Party in a few days? Just try it. You might find your answers if you do.", my mom winked at me.

I stared at my plate thinking in silence.

**Claire's POV ~**

Of course I knew that Coal was keeping an eye on me the entire lesson, I was lazy...not stupid after all. There was a major difference between the two. Strangly I found myself not caring that he was keeping tabs on me...I actually enjoyed it to be honest. It had to do with that cozy safe feeling again. It seemed like I had the tendency to get that a lot around Coal now.

He wasn't all that bad a person once you spent a little bit of time with him, he was a lot less cold and arrogant then I had thought and he seemed to adjust to being around Tsuna, Cera and Chris pretty well in only a week and a half. I hated to admit it, but he wasn't that bad looking either. If he took after his father, then I could see why Aunt Liz fell for Uncle Kid with the short cut black hair and golden yellow eyes...

OH NO!

NO!

NO!

NO!

I wasn't going to let my thoughts go any further then that! No way in hell was I falling for my meister! That was asking for trouble and welcoming it with a smile and open arms! I needed to cut this flower before it bloomed...but how? Going to Blair or my parents would have the complete opposite effect which was not what I needed or wanted at the moment.

** "Claire it's time to head home, looks like Soul and Maka gave us the day off from our resonance lessons today. Wanna head out?"**

I wanted to say yes, but I knew that was not what I needed to say at the moment. Out of the corner of my eye I cought sight of Cera and Tsuna talking by Tsubaki and an idea formed in my head. I looked back to Coal and shook my head smiling at him, **"Yeah, guess they figured Two was enough of a lesson for us or something. And nah Coal, you go ahead and I'll see yeah tomamrow morning. I have some questions for Professor Tsubaki about the lecture." **I hated lying but it got the job done and as soon as Coal left the classroom, I jumped at Cera and Tsuna and grabed the back of their shirt collars in my fists yanking them back towards me.

"What the hell Claire!?", demanded Cera struggling, "What's up with you all of a sudden? Give me one good reason not to use my magic on you!"

"Seriously Claire, what's gotten into you all of a sudden?", added Tsuna.

"Would you two shut up and calm down? I need your help with something big, but I'll explain more when we get to my place okay? And nobody is going to know about this!", I replied in a low tone, not looking back at them.

When I got home, I kicked open the front door of the apartment and lead Tsuna and Cera up to my room, "Mom! Dad! Tsuna and Cera are here and we'll be studying in my room until dinner is ready!", I called, not bothering to wait and see if anyone responded before pulling my captives into my bedroom and locking the door behind us.

_**Plan A - Hypnotisim with a little help from magic**_

"So let me get this right, you want me to hypnotize you into believing that you don't have deeper feelings for Coal?", Cera eyed me clearly trying not to laugh, "Where did this come from Claire?"

I glanced at Tsuna laughing leaning against the side of my bed and rolled my eyes. Then i looked back at the witch leaning against my closed closet door. "Yes I want you to use your magic and hypnotize me. I can't let myself fall for Coal. Not no way and not no how! Now are you going to help me or not Cera?" Still hearing Tsuna's laughing, my vain poped in my forehead and I threw a book from my bookshelf at her...thus nailing her right in the center of the face. "It's nothing to laugh about tsuna!", I yelled at her.

Cera sighed and shook her head, "It's not going to work but fine. Look me in the eyes and focus on me and thoughts of Coal."

I stood up in front of the raven witch and focused on nothing but Cera and Coal. I relaxed all of my mucles and tuned out everything but my friend and thoughts of my meister. "Okay Cera I'm ready.", I nodded.

"Okay now stay very relaxed, I'm going to try and use my magic to help you forget about any fuzzy feelings you may have for Coal. Caw-caw. Flap-flap. Claire, you're eyes are getting heavy and you're muscles are growing weak and relaxed.", came Cera's soothing voice.

I could feel the magic radiating from the witch in front of me and wrapping around my body. But I stayed as calm and stil las I could and listened to Cera's voice.

"Good. Now then, when I snap my fingers if you still have feelings for Coal then you will...throw anouther book at Tsuna."

"HEY! SAY WHAT NOW!?"

"Shut up Tsuna! It's the first thing that came to my head!" Then, "If you don't have any feelings for Coal anymore, then you will rush at me with a tackle hug. Nod if you understand Claire."

I nodded keeping my eyes closed.

"Wake up!"

I opened my eyes, feeling the magic leave my body. I lokoed around the bedroom blinking and brinign all of the familier things into focus again. Then I picked up another book and chucked it right at Tsuna, nailing her square in the face and sending her reeling onto the bed again.

"Time for Plan B...", sighed the raven witch shaking her head.

"YEAH THINK!?", yelled Tsuna.

_**Plan B - Scented candles and meditation**_

I sat in my closet with my eyes closed and my legs crossed. The only light coming from the candles lit haphazardly around my closet and giving off an over powering oaky-nutty scent that I tried breating in deeply with steady breaths. This was Cera's Plan B...aromatherapy. Use the scent ofthe candles to make me forget all about any deep feelings that I may be having for my meister. I had been in there for an hour at the least, when the closet door opened up and Cera and Tsuna peeked inside.

"Well...?", Cera grinned expectingly.

Tsuna managed to dodge her coat hanger, but I hit the witch.

"What do you think?!", I snaped frustrated.

_**Plan C - Hitting a picture of Coal on a dart boared with darts **_

"You sure about this Tsuna? It seems more violent then helpfull.", Cera hid behind me a little bit and carefully eyed the meister with darts in her hand in front of us.

"Oh come on Cera, lighten up will yeah! If magic and aromatherapy didn't work...why not try something a bit more Claire? Besides, this is fun!", Tsuna chucked a dart at the picture on the back of my wooden bedroom door.

Cera and I looked at each other skepitacally.

"It's a great idea Tsuna, but I don't see the point in it...not to mention that picture is of Cera. Not Coal.", I pointed out, just as Cera winceed when a dark landed right in he center of her forehead on the picture.

"Fine!", Tsuna huffed, "We'll do it your way Claire. There is one more thing we can try..."

_**Plan D - Headstanding**_

"Seriously?"

Cera and Tsuna looked at me grinning widely.

"Well?", asked Tsuna winking, "How do you feel now? Any thoughts about being all lovey-dovey with Coal still?"

I glared at the two girls unenthused, "I don't don't know.", I added sarcastically, "Is the blood rushing to my brain supposed to drown out any thoughts of Coal?" I tucked my legs to my body and rolled forward untill I ended up sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor looking up at Cera and Tsuna.

**Two words all: Don't. Ask. :) Well it's supposed to be romance and humor right? So I thought I would add more humor to it, plus this is a classic scene with Claire, Cera and Tsuna. **

**I mean let's be honest girls...how many of us can attest to asking their girlfriends out with guy problems and getting results like these? **

**Really now.**

**And looks like Coal has been hit with the love bug!**


	13. Traitor Number Three

**I have been waiting to write about this fight forever and I am so glad that I finally get too! Anyway, this is the third and final Traitor so I hope you all like this fight. **

**PS - I hate writer's block and I am appologizing in advance for this chapter. SOOO not my best work, but it works. Sorry guys.**

**Coal'S POV ~ **

I met my weapon partner outside her apartment like I had been doing every morning we had to go to school at the Academy. It wasn't like it was planned or anything...it just kind of happened after being partners for a few days and having classes together everyday. I eyed Claire when she walked out of the apartment and closed the door behind her. She looked the same sure, but I just had a feeling that something was off about her that morning. "Claire? You have a busy night or something that I should know about?", I asked raising an eyebrow at the scythe.

The scythe turned her crimson gaze on me and blinked, "Umm no, nothing's up out of the ordinary. I just got together with Tsuna and Cera last night for some girl stuff, why? Is it that obious that I'm out of it?"

I crossed my arms, "You're acting like the living dead Claire and you haven't hit me yet.", I replied eyeing her carefully. Was that really all that was wrong with my partner, or was there something else? I didn't bother checking her soul since it seemed like it's normal hyped up and cocky self as useuall. So then what was up with her? I shrugged it off, "Whatever you say Claire, but let's hurry and get to the Academy okay?" I headed off down the street and cast a sideways glance at Claire walking beside me out of habit.

It was going to be another interesting day...

**_Fifteen Minutes later -_ **

I narrowed my eyes at the Traitor in front of me and griped the scythe with one hand. I wasn't sure if Three was the strongest of the Traitors like she claimed to be, but I had a feeling that she was definetly going to be more of a challenge then One or Two were. Her wings gave her an incredably usefull speed and range advantage if Claire and I stayed on the ground. I had to even the odds if my weapon and I even stood a chance at beating Three. "Claire. Do me a favor and don't transform out of your weapon form unless I say it's okay too. If we even stand a chance against Three, then I have to even the playing feild a bit first."

"No problem, but what are you planning to do Coal?", Claire asked me glancing at me from the blade of the scythe.

"We're goign for a ride.", I replied holding out my free hand and summoning the familier skateboared from it. I stepped onto the skatebaord and was hoovering at eye leval with Three and holding Claire firmly in my hand still.

As soon as she realized my plan, the scythe's soul shook. I reacted to my partner's nervousness by trying to calm her soul with my own wavelength. _"I'm not goign to drop you or anything Claire, I promise. But you need to calm down and focus. I need my weapon partner to do this." _I felt the ball of white light calm and stablize again and I smirked.

It worked.

"What are you doing Coal? Let's kick this bird's feathered butt back to earth already!", my partner winked at me from the blade, "I'm hungry!" _"Thanks Coal."_

_"Partners right?" _I grinned realizing that I had my cocky, violent, overconfident partner back again. "Then I hope you like take out.", I laughed and urged the hoovering skateboard forward towards Three. I kept my eyes on the Traitor preparing myself to pull up when Three went to doge by flying upwards at a sharp angle.

I underestimated my opponant though.

Instead of flying up to avoid the scythe blade, Three blocked it with a knife grinning at me. "Oh looks like a certain little Reaper underestimated his opponant. How dare you peg me for a coward boy! You'll pay for your mistake!" Three flashed her wings and sent me reeling back with the gust of wind it created.

I recovered my balance and managed to stay on the board. I knew this Traitor was going to be more of a challenge. But there had to be a way around her. "I see that I did underestimate you. Here I thought that you were going to avoid my attack, but you were ready to block it and counter with that gust of wind you created with your wings. Clever."

"Yes, but flattery and realizing your mistakes won't help you against me boy!", Three flashed her wngs again and sent anouther gust of wind.

There was no way that this girl was getting me with that gust of wind trick again. I knew I couldn't use Claire's blade to block the wind and the fact she was armed combined with that wind made getting in close enough to land a succesfull attack dangerous if not impposibe. I needed time to find a weakness in her attacks somewhere, so I kicked the skateboard into high gear and took off away from her. As expected Three laughed and fallowed me close behind and firing gusts of wind at me the whole way. "There has to be a way to defeat her some way.", I growled just bearly missing gettign hit with a blast of wind, "Can't use a scythe to counter those wind blasts or gaurd against them...she's fast and armed...can't get near enough to land an attack with a scythe.."

"So don't get near her idiot."

This took me by surprise...was the weapon on to something there? "What are you talking about Claire? I need to get close to her if we want an attack to go through, but she counters it at every turn.", I stayed focused on avoiding being hit by Three's attacks as we sored all over the skys above Death City. What was Claire thinking about doing exactly?

"I mean let me handle her.", the scythe replied in a slightly annoyed tone, "Look Coal. Turn around and charge right at her at a high speed and then stop quick and chuck me at her like a boomerang. I can get past her like that in my weapon form and she'll let her gaurd down thinking it was a miss. With her focus on you, I can ricochette back around and transform into my human form and catch her in the back by surprise with my blade."

I thought about it. It was a risky move if Three caught onto the plan before Claire was too close to her for the Traitor to do anything about it. Plus we were several good feet above the city in the air like this. Things could get messy if I didn't catch my partner in time afterwards. "If you're sure about it Claire, then fine. Just don't blame me if you fall and hit the cobblestones or one of the roofs okay?", I relented.

"I trust you Coal, you said you wouldn't drop me after all. Right?", Claire replied laughing, "Now let's get her soul and end this!"

I laughed too and nodded. I waited untill I avoidded the latest blast of air from the Traitor behind us and made a sharp left turn increasing the speed of the board heading for Three. When Three stopped and shook her head at what I was doing, I released Claire and tossed my partner at the winged girl as hard as I could in a way someone would throw a boomerang and jerked the skateboard to a halt. I watched as Claire missed Three by several inches in her weapon form.

"THAT was your big plan to defeat me little Reaper boy? Throwing away your weapon partner like that? How very very foolish of you, considering now you are defenseless and you don't have a weapon with which to attack me with anymore.", Three laughed.

I smirked, "You underestimated the plan Three.", I said cryptically, "Check again. You should really pay more attention to how the weapon was thrown instead of the fact that I am weaponless now."

Claire appeared right on cue in her human form and headed for Three grinning. "You think you're so smart, but an idiot could see this atack coming!", she yelled and transformed her arm into a blade. The attack hit and Three erupted into a burst of black smokey ribbons to leave behind a hoovering red soul.

Seeing Claire falling through the air, I urged the skatebaord forward again towards my falling partner and reached out to take her hand. Once my hand closed on her arm, I pulled the ash blond to me and stoped the skateboard instantly. I smield at the red eyed weapon in my arms, "Well it's not everyday that you catch a girl falling from the sky right? Lucky for me that this turned out to be an arial battle hunh Claire?", I teased her and noticed a slight flush on her face, before it quickly faded.

"Shut up Coal! We're only like this because...in case you haven't noticed lately...we're hoovering in the sky above Death City on a flying skateboard! If we were on the ground I'd hit you! Now let's get Three's soul already.", Claire wraped her arms around my neck and looked at the hoovering red kishin soul above us.

I didn't say anything. Instead I flew us up close to the soul and watched as Claire reached out to grab it with one hand and kept the other around my neck. She tossed the soul into the air a little bit and cought it in her hand again, before swallowing it. My mother's words from last night a dinner replayed suddenly in my head about asking the scythe to dance at the Foundation Day Eve Party and I made up my mind there and then.

**That ariel battle was so much freaking fun, plus the little minor CXC too! The Foundation Day Eve Party is next! FIANALLY!**


	14. Death's Waltz

**SERIOUSLY LONG, DETAILED CHAPTER!**

**I hear by dedicate this chapter to Dia8Buyo.**

**Hey everyone! So I got the inspiration for this peticular scene from a little piano melody on youtube called Death's Waltz. Ironic I know, and yes I made it on the Foundation Day's Eve again. ****Only this time it's going to be a Coal/Claire bonding moment instead of an action-filled kishin revival thing. Hope you all don't mind.**

**...first dancing...THEN evil plot... :)**

**Coal's POV ~ **

At around eight o'clock staff and students started to flood the Academy steps and hallways. The school had been brilliently decorated for the Foundation Day Eve Party. A band played in one of the corners of the large airy room and the room itself was filled with the warm glow of candle light. Crystal chandaliers were hanging from the cieling refracting the light, connected by white and pale grey streamers that you had to look carefully for to find. Over all the atmosphere was warm and full of excitment.

I stood with my parents, aunt and causin as the three adults spoke with some of the guests laughing. I kept my hands in the popckets of my black jacket and sighed looking over at my causin Tessa.

My causin adjusted the skirt of her red strapless gown before glancing at me.

Just from that one look, I knew that we both felt the same way. Board. I was going to say something, when the crowds milling through the large front doors cought my attention. I narrowed my eyes and searched the party goers until I located the annoyed warm white soul with the pigtails. Beside her was a calm orange soul that loked liek she could go into a violent tantrum at any minute.

Smirking, I grab my causin's wrist and pulled her over to the six people. Soul, Maka, Black Star and Tsubaki headed for my parents and aunt when Tessa and I arrived. "Looks like we're not the only ones not happy about being here. So. Soul, Maka, Black Star and Tsubaki dragged you two into this little party to hunh?", I grinned at Claire and Tsuna.

"Got that right. To bad I don't dance.", Claire sighed tucking a piece of her ash blond hair behind an ear.

I eyed my weapon partner carefully and raised an eyebrow. I was silent taking in my partner's sudden, dramatic change over a mere few hours from our last soul resonance practice together. No longer was she the firey, dangerous scythe from earlier.

In her short, strapless black gown Claire's red eyes were made more prominant. Around her neck was a black lace choker.

I didn't realize that I had gone silent and stared at the scythe. It was Tessa's amused sounding voice that brought my attention back to the dance.

"Hey Tsuna look. Looks like Cera and Chris finally showed up, let's go say hi!", Tessa squeeled delightedly before grabing the meister's hand and taking off towards the blue gowned Cera and the dark grey suited Chris.

Thus effectivly leaving me alone with Claire.

I glared after my causin and would swear that I cought a wink and smirk. I turned back to the red eyed scythe rubbing the back of my head unsure what to say. For the first time I was actually intimidated by the weapon, nervous around her. I shut my eyes and sielntly scolded myself that Claire was my partner and that was no reason to act or feel this way around her.

"Umm..Coal? You going to stand there liek and idiot or what? Scaring you're partner here.", Claire said.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the band stoped and Soul walked over to the large black grand piano in the corner of the room. Maka fallowed. The albino weapon took his place on the matching black piano bench, as Claire's mother situated herself haphazardly on the edge of the piano itself. The room fell silent with just a few murmers going around: confussed but excited ones from the students and knowing grins from the staff.

When Soul started playing it didn't take very long for the dance floor to flood with students and a few staff couples. Tsuna and Chris. My mother and father...surprisingly. Black Star and Tsubaki.

The music was strange...dark, but melodic and intrancing at the same time. It compelled me to do something I never thought that I'd do. Something that had never crossed my mind up until that moment. Well okay. So I actually ended up taking my mother's advice, but I wouldn't have done it if my mother hadn't suggested it in the first place.

I looked at Claire and held a hand out to her, "Claire Evans. Would you like to dance?"

**Claire's POV ~ **

I had started to sway to the music of the paino playing. My dad's playing always calmed me without fail and I knew this piece. Of course not well, but well enough to move my body to it a little bit. The music was a complicated piece of music if you didn't understand it or know how to dance to the paino. Dark. Fast paced. But with an undertone of eagerness and joy just the same. This must have been why we skipped resonance lessons with Soul and Maka that day...my dad was busy writing this for the party! I should have known and found myself wondering if it was at mom's request or not.

**_"__Claire Evans. Would you like to__ dance?"_**

My heart jumped up into my throught in an instant. I swore I heard my meister wrong, when the question cut through the melody of my dad's piano playing and caused me to freeze. There was no way Coal just asked me to dance...right? I mean of all the female Academy students at the dance tonight, why the hell did he ask me? Especially when any one of those girls would practically faint if he asked one of them to dance with him. So I kind of just stood there like an idiot and blinked staring at my partner holding his hand out to me, not sure what to say or do in response.

I felt a shiver run down my spine and a slight heat creep up into my cheeks against my will, when the Gim Reaper sighed and closed his hand around mine. "Oh lighten up Claire and learn to have a little fun once and awhile, that doesn't involve you getting into trouble.", the black haired boy chided me with a wide grin and pulled me onto the dance floor among the ohter couples.

"Coal I'm not sure about this...", I looked around the packed dance floor wanting to back up and go find Tessa, Tsuna and Cera instead, "Maybe we shouldn't..."

Too little effort too late.

Before I could even finish my sentence, Coal was carefully guiding me around the dancefloor to the beat of the quick paced paino music. One hand holding my own and the other placed lightly at my waist. A cocky triumphant grin on the Reaper's face as he smilied at me, "What are you so nervous about this time Claire? You're dancing pretty well, so don't lie and try telling me that you can't dance. Because you can."

I allowed the meister to spin me several times rapidly in a single fluid motion and then started to fallow his steps again. The black dress I was wearing swirled around my ankles as we danced. "It's piano music, dancing to it is easy. All you have to do is fallow the speed of the music.", I shrugged it off like it was no big deal. What I said was true. All though I was pretty sure that the only reason I knew anything about piano, was because I grew up with a painist for a father. Soul was always playing with my mom teaching me the steps to the songs. This song was child's play to me. I wasn't surprised that Coal knew the steps either, but something did catch me off gaurd.

The feeling came back as I allowed the Reaper to spin me around the dance floor. Not a feeling like when he held me in my weapon form. But the intense sense of saftey, normalcy and belonging that I felt the night we accidently passed out together at Gallows Manor. I smiled and locked our fingers together, as I felt the tension and care leave me completly.

I was completly oblivious to the other dancing pairs loking at us or parting to make way for us. Completely unaware of both our parents watching us closely with knowing grins. I didn't care. As far as I was concerned my meister was the only other person in the room with me.

I kept my blood red eyes locked on Coal's golden yellow ones. They were calm, focused and laughing at the fact he had gotten me to dance after my little fit. "So, you're not going ot dance hunh? So this is me dragging you around hte dance floor then?", he laughed.

I rolled my eyes but giggled, "Oh please. I was being polite. Remember what Proffesor Tsubaki said about being on our best behavior?", I teased back.

No. That wasn't the truth and I knew it. I wanted to dance with the Grim Reaper. I wanted to hold his hand and be the envy of the other girls in the room that night. I didn't want any other girl dancing with Coal or even looking at him. I trusted the meister, but the girls here were a different story. They had to know that Coal was spoken for already and to stear clear away from him.

Coal smirked, "Oh. So now you're just being a good little girl?"

Normally I would have shouted at my meister, but didn't this time. Instead I smirked right back at him, "I've been known to be a good girl every once and awhile. I do have some of Maka in me after all. I'm not entierly a rule-braker like my dad was."

Coal shook his head grinning.

Instantly the imiage of Maka and Soul together forced it's way into my thoughts, only to be replaced by Coal and I. Was I really in love with the Grim Reaper? My partner and friend?

When the music stoped Coal spun me one last time and drew me to him. The crowd cheered for us, before my partner released me and a new song started up. I started to walk off to join Tsuna, Tessa and their partners, but the Reaper took my hand and drew me back to face him again. I looked at his hand holding mine and raised an eyebrow at him. "What's up Coal?", I asked. My black gown settling around my ankles again, after the unexpected swift movement spun the fabric around my legs.

Coal shushed me and started pulling me through the crowds of students and staff towards the front doors of the Academy. "Quiet. You don't want to be here right? Our parents saw us dance and I've got Tessa and Cera covering for us so we can get out of here.", he replied.

"So you're kidnapping me?", I concluded.

"Pretty much.", Coal replied.

When we were succesfully outside, Coal summoned Beezlebub and pulled me up onto the skateboared behind him. "You're going to want to hang on.", he said pointedly.

I nodded and wrapped my arms around his waist, before we were airborne several feet in the air.

I tightened my grip a bit on the Reaper and looked down at the city below. The lit up street lamps and lights from the houses made the city look like a giant candle under us. What a mode of transportation too. I looked away thankfull that heights didn't really bother me. I looked at the back of Coal's head and took in a breath to place my head on the back of his shoulder. The wind whiping my ash blond hair about my face with the speed of the skateboared. "So you goign to tell me what this is about, or where we are going Coal?", I asked keeping my voice normal.

"We're going to Gallows Manor, thought we could wait out hte rest of the aprty there. But we are going the long, scenic route through the city.", Coal replied, "What's wrong Evans? You afraid of hieghts? Or you don't trust your meister with you on a flying skateboared?"

"Well a girl has a right to know what's goign on when she's kidnapped by a Grim Reaper.", I replied. I paused biting my lower lip before, "Hey Coal..."

"Yeah?", he asked glancing back at me.

I hesitated but, "We're here. You should probably land, before we hit one of the spires."

Coal looked away nodding and landed in front of Gallows Mansion.

I jumped off and fixed my hair that was stirred by the wind as we flew. I found myself missing the closeness to Coal and the smooth steady speed of the flying skateboared. Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I walked over to Coal as he retracted Beezlebub. "Thanks for the ride Coal and the dance earlier. I honestly didn't expect to have as much fun as I did.", I said a bit nervous, "So what n...", but I never got to finish my question.

Coal cut me off mid sentence, by pressing his lips carefully to mine and wrapping me in a firm, warm grip.

**Oh yes I did! This was one heck of a chapter to write! I started this chapter when I was still working on Chapter 10.**

**(By the way...if you are interested in what song they danced to, then go to youtube and look up: "Death's Waltz" or "Death Waltz".)**

**Anyway...muhahaha!**


	15. Taken

**So what did you guys think of Coal finally kissing Claire? Origionally it was going to be it's own chapter, but I changed it up a bit. How can you write a whole chapter about a single kiss? Anyway, let's get back to the story.**

**Claire's POV ~ **

Coal's sudden kiss startled me and it took a few minutes for my brain to register everything. But once it did, I just let my body react naturally. This lead to my arms wrapping around Coal's neck and me returning the kiss, making the two of us stuck like that for a minute outside of Gallows Manor.

Well that was untill reality kicked in at least. Realizing what was going on, I ended the kiss and managed to brake free from the Grim Reaper. I felt like a wreck, a seriously confussed wreck at the moment. Sure I knew that Coal and I had feelings for each other that went beyond weapon and meister or friends, but for some reason I still fell into a panic mode. I was worried that being more then a weapon or friend to Coal would screw up our abilities to fight as a team on misions. I didn't want to think about what it would be like if Coal was hurt, or worse, trying to protect me during a mission.

"Claire?", Coal asked me in a gentle voice as he reached for my hand. I could tell he was concerned by my sudden actions and silence.

I jerked my hand away and took a step back, looking at him. "I'm sorry Coal, but I have to go. If mom or dad find I've left, then they are goingt to be checking in with Blair first. See you tommarow in class.", and I took off running as fast as I could away from Gallows Manor and Coal.

"Claire! Hold up!", came Coal's yelling.

I wanted to stop running and head back to my partner, but my feet did the opposite. They kept propelling me forward until I had left Coal and the manor in my dust. Unable to keep the quickened pace any longer, I slowed down to a jog until I finally just stoped in the street all together.

I bent over breathing hard from the run and tried to ease my breathing. I should have gone back and told Coal to never kiss me again. That we were friends and partners...nothing more. But I couldn't bring myself to turn back. I wanted nothing more then to talk to Soul and Maka about this. Dad was mom's weapon partner after all. Maybe they could help.

I was about to head back t the apartment and wait for my parents to get in from the party, when something sharp pinched my ankle. I jumped and lokoed down only to give a loud shreik and back away. "What the hell? I know it's the desert, but a scorpion?", I watched the little creature scurry away from me.

"Yes a scorpion, isn't it just darling?", came a familier female voice.

I looked up to see Hana stoop down to pick the scorpion up and stroke it grinning.

"Hana! What are you doing!?", but that was all I could manage, before I fell to my knees. My breathing became laboured and a fog started to creep it's way into my brain. "Wh-what's happening to me all of a sudden?", I stammered.

Hana laughed darkly, "Ah good. The poison is already starting to take effect, perfect. In no time you'll be completly out of it. There's no point in fighting it."

I glanced up at Hana gritting my teeth, "You did this! Why?! You're not a weapon, so killing me off won't make you partners with Coal!" This wasn't making any sense to me.

Hana shook her head, "You mean you don't know? It's not the son of Lord Death I'm after sweetie...it's you!", she laughed. Then, "My name is Shaula Gorgon, the Scorpion Witch. I'm the younger sister of Arachne Gorgon, the Heritic and Spider Witch. Medusa the Snake Witch was also my sister. Both of which your dear parents, Soul Eater and Maka Evans, killed. I want revenge and thats where you'll come in."

"So you'll kill me and then what?!", I demanded as the fog around my brain started to thicken, "It's not like it'll bring back your sisters! It won't change the fact that Maka and Soul killed both of them!", I challenged as I felt my eyes droop.

"Oh my dear weapon, I'm not going to kill you right away." Shaula shook her head, "I'm not feeling that generous today. I'll simply steal you away and hold you while my poison works it's own sort of magic. Let your parents and everybody else frantically look for you in vain. That's my plan."

She called that being generous!? I couldn't stay awake anymore, the scorpion's poison was making me too tierd to even insult the witch. "I'm sorry Coal. I was an idiot.", I said before passing out and allowing the blank numbness to swallow me up.

**Coal's POV ~ **

As soon as Claire took off, I summoned Beezlebub and toko off after her. I needed to find her fast, a bad feeling in the pit of my gut made me push the flying skateboared even faster. Desperate to find my aprtner, I resorted to using my soul preception to search for the familier soul of my weapon. Luckily it wasn't long before I honed in on the familier white soul with two pigtail-like formations.

But with my partner's soul was anouther unfamliler soul. A dark purple one with a scorpion-like tail and a hunger for revenge and bloodlust.

Not good.

When I landed and retracted Beezlebub, I glared at the scene in front of me. Hana was holding an unconcious Claire and grinned at me. "Hana! What happened to Claire!?", I demanded angry now. There was only one explination that I could think of and I really didn't like it, "Hand Claire over now!"

Hana laughed, "Sorry lover boy but I can't do that. You're little scythe partner here is going to get me revenge for her parents killing my older sisters you see. And I'mafraid it's Shaula Gorgon, not Hana."

Panic and anger boiled inside me as I glared at the last Gorgon sister. "Get your hands off of her! You're family and their associates aren't protected under the Academy's treaty with the witches!", I yelled running at the scorpion witch. But anger at the witch and worry for the weapon that Shuala was carrying was blinding me. I wasn't thinking clearly about my actions like I normally would in this kind of situation.

The scorpion witch only laughed shaking her head, "My my. Did I manage to hit a nerve boy? You're such a touchy little Reaper aren't you? You must really care about this little scythe, don't you boy? I can tell just by your tone of voice. That's too bad.", she smirked not flinching as I neared her, "Scrupi-Scorp. Scorpion-Sting. Fang Knives.", she chanted laughing darkly.

I tried dodging the fang-like blades heading for me, but I ended up stumbling when I felt the blades cut my skin. I fell onto the stones and grit my teeth. I could feel the poison from the blades starting to paralyze my nerves and muscles already.

So this was what fighting a witch was like...

"Aww I had hoped for a better fight from a Grim Reaper, but oh well. I have what I came for anyway," the scorpion witch smirked as she adjusted Claire hanging over her shoulder, "Good bye lover boy.", and she took off with Claire.

"Claire...", my head flopped onto my arms and my eyes closed.

**Claire: WHAT THE HELL WOLF!?**

**Coal: I agree. What the hell was that!? You made me look pathetic.**

**Me: Well Coal, you know that meister's need their weapons to fight properly...right? And there is the little factor of Shuala being a witch AND a Gorgon sister. Considering what your parents went through with Arachne and Medusa...I thought this would be accurate.**

**Coal: I'm a Grim Reaper!**

**Claire: *whacks Coal on the back of the head* Shut up Coal and stop complaining! You're not the one that was just captured by a witch that's planning on, literally, tourtoring you to death with poison!**

**Me: *rolls eyes sighing* What did I just get myself into...?**


	16. Coal's Special Assignment

**Yes I did just do that and please don't kill me you guys. I warned all of you that the evil plot will come into play soon after the dance, right? I was going to origionally use Medusa's daughter as the main antagonist, but there was already Crona and Shuala had motive. Plus I got to mess with One, Two and Three too.**

**This is all in Coal's POV!**

**Coal's POV ~**

I had no idea how long I was out of it, all I knew was that I couldn't move. I hated feeling so helpless like that. I was completely aware of my surroundings the entire time the poison from the scorpion witch in my system.

I layed on the soft bed sheets trying to will myself to move to my feet. Here my weapon partner needed me and I, her meister and a Grim Reaper, was laying unable to do anything about it on a bed. Claire maybe a capable scythe on her own, but it looked like Shual had done somethingto her. Based on my own state it was more then likely some kind of posion. If that was the case, then theweapon wouldn't stand much of a chance against the witch no matter how good of a fighter she was. I needed to get to her some how!

I froze when the door opened and footsteps hurried into the room. familier warm arms wraped around me before shortly fallowing with a shower of kissing. I reconized the warm, relieved soul as my mother. She was crying too hysterically to really say anything, causing me to groan inwardly.

My mom might have been a Death Scythem but she freaked out over stuff too easily. How did dad put up with it?

"Carefull Liz, he needs room to breath. He's paralized as it is, but this'll take care of that."

A pinch in my shoulder, a rush of what felt like liquid ice in my vains and I bolted up right instantly and flashed my gaze around the room. My father, aunt, Soul, Tsubaki, and Black Star stood in the Dispense room looking at me. My mother sat on the edge of my bed looking worried and Maka stood over me with a needle nodding pleased.

"Good it worked, welcome back Coal.", Maka's voice was gentler then I had heard it before.

I rubbed my shoulder where the meister had injected whatever woke me up and moved to get up. "Yeah, thanks Mrs. Evans. But I need to go. Shuala Gorgontook Claire and I've got to track them down." A pair of strong hands on my shoulders made me halt. I spun and faced my father looking at me with a serious lok.

"We know what happned Coal.", his voice was steady like he was trying to calm me as he would an upset child, "But you're not leaving this room and chasing after the scorpion witch. Not in your condition..."

"I'm fine dad! Claire's the one you all should be worried about, not me! Why haven't you done anything to try and find her, instead of worrying over me!?", I growled with a narrowed gaze.

"We wanted to make sure you were stable first son, you have to understand that. Maka made it clear that you're not going to be in any fighting confition for a few days at least.", my father's voice was strained to stay collected, "Claire'll be okay. We'll get her back but you have to stay in Dispence and I'm placing you're causin, Cera, Chris and Tsuna here to keep an eye on you."

Oh soul-loving-kishin no way! Not if I had anything to say about that! Not if laire was involved!

"NO DAD!", I yelled suddenly full of anger, capturing the attention of each adult in the room. My blood was boiling over and I felt like hitting something. But luckily I restrained myself enough to prevent that. "Claire is my partner! I'm her meister! My fault or not, I'm going after her to bring her and Shuala's head back!", I snaped harshly which was unlike my normal calm persona. None of them understood that it had to be me. None of them understood that Claire was more then just a weapon or friend to me anymore! I loved Claire! I was going to kill that witch for what she had done to teh weapon, no two ways about it. She was going to be sorry she ever crossed a Grim Reaper!

As expected, my mother and Aunt Maka were the very first two to protest.

"No Coal!", my mother out right snapped with hard icy blue eyes glaring at me, "You're not going anywhere after that witch! Let us handle things and bring Claire back."

Maka added her agreement to my mother's argument. Personally I was surprised when it was her daughter that was the one in danger here. "We know you want to help Claire, but this is a Gorgon sister we are dealing with. Her older sisters Medusa and Arachne gave us enough of headaches when we were all students at the Academy. Shuala won't be much different. We can't loose you, Tessa or Tsuna too.", she said pushing me back down on the bed.

I slapped Maka's hand roughly away and glared heatedly at her, "I don't care! Ishould have kept her from running off like that! I should have protected her, but I failed!", I yelled out loud not caring anymore what the adults around my bed were going to be lead to believe.

Silence.

I was breathing hard as I scanned each of the seven dumbfounded faces that lokoed at me, trying to read what they were thinking about. I paid close attention to Soul and my father, who were silently staring at each other for several minutes. Finally the albino weapon nodded and my father turned to look at me.

"Allright Coal. You'll go after Shuala and Claire.", my father agreed, "But you're not to engage the scorpion witch in any way, understand? You're mission is to bring Claire back here to the Academy. Nothing more. After Maka had treated Claire, the seven of us will go after Shuala and deal with her then."

I nodded, but made a silent fist under my hospital bed sheets. I wanted the witch's head true, but my father was right. Claire and her saftey took first priority here...not getting back at the witch.

"Kid...are you sure about this? This isn't just some kishin that you're sending our son out after you know.", asked my mom nervously.

My father nodded and looked at my mother, "This is something for Coal to do Liz. We will handle Shuala, but it has to be Coal that brings back Claire. Nobody else."

I watched my mother reluctantly nod her head in defeat and I breathed trying to calm my pulse. Once I had calmed myself, I pushed myself to my feet and then pushed myself past teh seven adults and out into the halls to head for the front of the Academy.

I had no idea wher Shuala had taken Claire, but I knew how to find out and how to get there quickly. Activating my soul preception, I stepped onto Beezlebub and took off. _'I'm coming Claire. Just hang on.'_, I mentally begged her.


	17. The Last Gorgon Sister

**Welcome back everyone and thanks to all of you that are sticking around. Please REVIEW! Anway, enjoy this chapter, this is where the fun begins! This chapter may, or may not, also invlude flashbacks from the anime and some sweet stuff between Coal and Claire...just to forewarn all of you in case you don't like that stuff.**

**This is all Claire's POV because I had no idea how to throw Coal's POV in here, and it balances with last chapter well this way.**

**Claire's POV ~ **

I had no idea where I was. The last thing that I remembered was being stung with one of Shuala's pet scorpions and passing out on the cobblestone street in Death City. I had no idea where I was now, but I knew it definetly wasn't the city.

**_"Oh my dear weapon, I'm not going to kill you right away. I'm not feeling that generous today. I'll simply steal you away and hold you while my poison works it's own sort of magic. Let your parents and everybody else frantically look for you in vain. That's my plan."_**

I shivered involentarily when I remembered what Shuala had said what she had planned. So this was how dangerous a witch could be then? I guessed that I was so used to being around witches like Cera, that I forgot how nasty they could be if they wanted to. They weren't people to take lightly or mess around with.

**_'I'm coming Claire. Just hang on.'_**

When somebody grabed me and pulled me to them, I had no idea who it was or what they had planned. The effects of the poison were starting to ease and the fog was lifting, but it was slow. I struggled against my new captor thinking the worst automatically and tried to get away. But the arms only held me tighter tothe wall of heat.

"Claire! Take it easy and stop fighting before you kill me!", a distinctive male voice spoke in a low and calm tone.

My eyes shot open when I heard the familier warm calming voice. The voice pushing back the reaming fog from my head, as I looked up into the relieved golden yellow eyes of my meister. Overjoyed I lunged at the Grim Reaper and wrapped my arms around him unable to stop the waterworks. "Coal! You're here! I'm so sorry for running off like that! I was an idiot for doing that!", I yelled.

But my grip loosened as I felt light headed suddenly and my arms felt like jelly. Luckily the meister kept a firm grip around me and helped me to sit up slowly.

"Easy calm down and breath okay. Yeah you were an idiot to run off like that, but forget about it. All that matters is that...aside from being poisoned...you're okay.", Coal hung onto me and pressed his lips against my forehead careully smiling, "Come on Evans. Let's get you out of here and back to the Academy."

I smiled nodding at him, "Yeah." I felt the familier sense of saftey again that I had been feeling around Coal a lot lately, and finally felt like I understood it. Three Traitors, four failed attempts at denial and one kidnapping later and I finally understood my feelings for Coal.

Oh was Cera going to have a feild day with me when we got back.

"Oh how cute, young love.", came the one voice I was dreading at the moment, "We meet again Coal and here I thought that you learned your lesson the last time we met. What do you think you are doing with my lovely captive there?", she taunted knowing full well that Coal had come to rescue me.

I felt my meister's muscles in his arm around me tense. He was glaring at the Gorgon Sister with a hard look in his normally teasing golden yellow eyes. He pulled me a little bit closer behind him.

"You, witch, just happen to be the luckiest witch alive right now.", Coal growled at the smirking scorpion witch, "Get out of the way and we'll leave you alone. Refuse and you'll face the wrath of a Grim Reaper!", he snaped.

Shuala laughed shaking her head, "Oh I'm going to face the wrath of a Grim Reaper am I? With your precious little weapon being effected by my darling scorpion's poison? I never pegged you to be the kind of meister that would risk your partner's life for a simple attempt at revenge. Especially when you feel so strongly for her."

I knew by the look of frustration on Coal's face that Shuala had hit a weak point. There was no way that he'd risk my life just for a chance at revenge.

Time for the girls to save the day and knock some sense into the guys.

It wasn't easy to focus but I allowed myself to be covered in white light and land in Coal's arms as a scythe.

The scorpion witch narrowed her eyes, "Oh so you're willing to fight me despite the risk are you?", she eyed me, "You're either very brave or very foolish and impulsive Claire."

Coal spun me, before looking at me raising an eyebrow. "Claire we shouldn't do this with that poison in your bloodstream. Shuala's a strong witch and shse's going to trty and draw this fight out as long as she can on purpose."

I looked up at the mesiter from the silver and black scythe blade, "Don't worry about me Coal, I'm not a weak little girl. I'm a scythe. Besides that we're Academy Students, so we have a sense of duty to take Shuala out for good. It's not like we have any other choice if we want to get out of here alive anyway.", I added a bit darkly.

The Grim Reaper sighed and glanced at me, "Then I guess we'll have to make this fight end quickly to get you back to Maka."

I nodded smirking.

Coal spun me around his headand held me ina defensive position in front of him, "Scorpion Witch Shuala Gorgon! In the name of the Grim Reaper, your soul belongs to us!"


	18. Two People, One Soul Resonance

**Readers beware, this is the lovey dovey scene from the flashback in the prolouge and then some. If you are not into sweet scenes(because you're just nuts :( ) then stay away from this and the next chapter. OKay, just stop reading if this is the case come to think of it.**

**OH YEAH!**

**WARNING!****  
VERY LONG CHAPTER AHEAD!**

**Sorry if it feels a bit rushed! I have finals and a lot of updating to work on, so I wanted to get this one out and done with for all of you guys.**

**Claire's POV ~ **

**"Scorpion Witch Shuala Gorgon, in the name of the Grim Reaper your soul belongs to us!"**

It felt good to be Coal's hands again in weapon form, right where I belonged. Together we were able to fight off most of Shuala's spells, but after awhile I started to feel myself want to shift out of my weapon form. Staying as a scythe was starting to become more of a challenge the longer the fight carried on and both Shuala and my partner seemed to notice this.

"Aww is the little scythe finding it difficult to stay in her weapon form?", smirked the witch at me, "You were fools to fight me like this! I'll get my revenge and I won't even have to do much lifting, this fight is mere child's play!", she laughed.

We had to end this quickly and I knew that there was only one chance we had to do that. I looked up at my meister from the scythe blade, "Coal. We don't have a choice anymore. We've put it off long enough but now we have to use the technique or at least try to pull it off.'

The Grim Reaper sighed, "I know and I've been thinking about that for awhile now. Let's end this witch and go home. Let's go Soul resonance!"

A light covered Coal and I as hhe swung me back over his shoulder, the bright light having cought the laughing scorpion witch's shocked attention.

"T-that's not possible! You should be too weak by now to pukll that off!", Shuala yelled at us, taking a visiable step back, "I'll stop you! I have to stop you! Fang Knives!", she yelled sendign the poisoned knives our way.

Coal kicked off from the ground and swung me through the air to easily block the witch's spell.

"WITCH HUNTER!", I yelled at the same time the Grim Reaper did and he slashed me at Shuala.

Shuala dissolved into a vortex of black ribbons, before leaving behind a glowing light purple soul.

We did it...

I laughed for a minute with Coal, untill I realized somehthing was wrong with me. The next thing I knew, I was no longer in Coal's hands as a weapon but on the ground as a human again. My chest felt heavy like I wasn't getting enough air into my lungs, causing me to breathe deeper to try and take in more air. I could feel the shivers running down my spine. Sweat appeared on my face and arms and I felt clamy even to my own touch.

"Claire!", in an instant Coal knelt down next to me and I felt a pair of arms wrap around me, to help me into a sitting position.

I didn't like what I was hearing in my meister's normally indifferent, mocking tone...it was fear. Not something that I expected Coal to feel before then. I had the feeling that the fear he had wasn't for him, but for me instead. There was no hiding the fact that something was wrong with me when I was in this condition.

I felt him palce a carefull hand on my forehead, before his arms tightend around me and I was picked off of the ground and carried.

Not sure what really compelled me to do so, I wraped by own arms around his neck and locked my fingers tight together to hang onto the Grim Reaper. Sure enough I opened my eyes and looked up to see the meister carrying me and I blinked up at him.

I felt tierd and just wanted to sleep, but it was like a little voice was telling me that was an incredably stupid idea. That I'd never wake up if I fell asleep.

"C-Coal? Where are we going? What about -?", I started, only to be cut off by Coal.

"Pipe down Claire." His voice was firm but gentle all the same, "Don't talk okay? The poison is spreading quicker now, we need to get you back to Death City and to Maka fast. She'll be able to fix you up good as new in now time flat. Just hang on tightly to me and focus on your breathing alright. You'll be okay. I promise I'm not going to let anything happen to you.", he hushed me.

Now that was the firm, calm voice that I reconized. Either the fear I heard earlier was gone, or my meister was just doing an impressive job of hiding it from me.

I laughed shaking my head and buried my head into the young Reaper's shoulder, "I know." Finally deciding to give into the sleepy feeling that had ovewhelmed me, I closed my eyes and clung to Coal tighter.

I allowed the blackness to engulf me and that was all I knew.

**Coal POV ~ **

I was a nervous wreck while I paced the hallway outside the Dispence doorway waiting. My thoughts kept flashing back to memories I had of Claire: from when we hated each other all the way to finding her in Shaula's castle. I hated all of this waiting around and not knowing if my weapon partner was alright or not. I knew Maka was the Academy nurse for a reason and that she'd do everything she could to help her daughter. But I was still thinking what if it wasn't enough?

"Figures I'd find you here.", came a cool, deep voice behind me, "Looks like I'm not the only anxious one around here."

I spun around and looked in the direction of the voice to see Soul stop a foot or so away from me. His hands were in his pockets and if you didn't notice the dull worriness in his eyes, then he would have seemed perfectly collected despite what was going on.

I hurridly shrunk back a way away from him, earning myself a raised eyebrow from the scythe. I was alert and keept my gaze locked on the white haired weapon, ready to react to anything. Claire was his daughter and only child after all and I was her meister. If there was one person that had any right to blame me for what Claire was going through at the moment aside from myself, it was Soul. Maka did too, of course, but at the moment the older scythe meister was a bit more preocupied with saving Claire's life then dealing with me.

Soul, on the other hand, could easily run me through if he wanted to and be completely justified in doing it.

"Uncle Soul..I-I'm...", I started but shut my mouth and looked away from the albino weapon. The weapon that was a scythe just like Claire was and who she'd gotten her blood red eyes and her cocky atitude from. It had been awhile since I called him "Uncle" Soul. It was useually just "Soul", "Proffesor" or "Mr. Evans." I wasn't sure what to say or expect from the scythe at this point. So I started to expect the worst and just sat there waiting for him to strike me with his scythe blade.

But the strike never came.

Instead the scythe just raised an eyebrow at me and shook his head in understanding, "Look Coal, I'm not going to attack you or anything alright? So you can calm down.", he grinned exposing his shark-like teeth.

"But what happened to Claire...", I started but he cut me off, by placing a firm hand on my shoulder.

"Wasn't your fault Coal, it was Shaula that put Claire in the condition she's in. Not you. Plus you did everything you could to get to her and you brought her back here, that was more then Maka or I could have bargined for.", Soul said calmly as he looked at me with sincere eyes so much like Claire's bloody red eyes, "Claire's a strong girl and Maka is a talented nurse. She's in good hands." Then after a minute of silence his hand droped from my shoulder and retreated back into his jacket pocket, "You know...you remind me a lot of when Maka and I were students like you and Claire."

This cought my attention and temporarily drew it away from the fact that my partner and the girl I cared deeply for was in harms way still. "What?", I asked curious like a little kid now.

Soul leaned against the wall opposite me, "Well when Maka and I were still students...along with your parents, aunt, Tsubaki and Black Star...I was beat up pretty bad during an extracuricular lesson when I tried sheilding Maka from a sword meister and passed out at the scene. I had to be brought back here for surgery and everything." Soul's face darkened for a minute before he continued, "The point is that...even though I chose to jump in front and take that attack on my own...Maka still blamed herself for a long time for what happened. Even though she had nothing to do with it. I saw the pain it caused her and seeing her suffer like that only made me feel worse. Don't fall into the same trap we did when we were students Coal. It's not worth it. Especially when it wasn't really your fault."

I was going to ask the scythe what that had anything to do with what happened to Claire, when the Dispence door opened and Maka walked out. She eyed Soul and I before nodding. "The treatment was a success, but only time will tell how she'll do in the long run.", she looked at me with a surprisingly gentle smile, "Why don't you go in and see her Coal? Claire's asleep right now, but I have a feeling she'd want you in the room with her."

I nodded and tip toed quietly into the room to sit carefully on the edge of my partner's bed. Maka wasn't kidding when she said Claire was still seriously asleep, but I squeezed her hand any way. "I'm sorry Claire.", I sighed shaking my head.


	19. Antidote

**Well? What did you guys think hmm? I know that was a fluffy chapter, well it only gets more fluffy! Sadly this is coming to an end soon and I just want to say thank you for sticking with me. But there are still a few more chapters to go after this one. So let's get going.**

**Claire's POV ~ **

_**"I'm sorry Claire..."**_

I opened my eyes and blinked before raising my head to block out the sunlight from my eyes. My head was still foggy and my body was sore and stiff. I stared up at the celing trying to recall the events that had landed me in the Academy's Dispence: Dancing with Coal at the Foundation Day Eve Party.

The flying skateboared ride to Gallows manor.

Kissing Coal outside Gallow's Manor.

Running off into the city and running into the Scorpion Witch, Shaula Gorgon.

The intense pain and burning sensation from the scorpion sting.

Passing out briefly.

Waking up to see Coal looking at me worried, as we were inside some kind of cave.

Fighting Shula with Coal and pulling off Witch Hunter.

Deafeating her.

Getting dizy and collapsing onto the ground after transforming into my human form again.

Coal picking me up and me passing out again, while he carried me to Beezlebub.

Coal!

I sit bolt upright in a sheer panic. What if Coal had brought me back to the Academy, but was hurt and I didn't realize it?

Or the Reaper didn't tell me to not worry me? I wouldn't put it past him! I needed to find my meister as soon as possible and make sure that he was okay. Whatever the case may be I had to find him! He risked himself to find me and save me Shaula after all, I wouldn't forgive myself if something happened to him because of my one moment of confussion and insecurity.

I turned around to swing my legs over the edge of the hospital bed and thre back the pristine white sheets, when something made me stop. I sat there frozen for a minute as I allowed my brain to process the fact that there was a strong pressure on my left hand, pinning it down to the bedside. Even though I couldn't sense souls like my mom, I knew that the source of this pressure asn't melevolant. In fact...it was warm, familier and protetive. The complete opposite of what I was automatically expecting.

I looked at my traped hand and fallowed the hand covering mine to the source. My breath cought in my throught and relief and fear flooded me when I reconized the person holding my hand tightly, as he slept with his head resting on his other arm on the bedside.

It was Coal.

My meister was completely out of it by the looks of it. But there was no mistaking that black hair or the slightly unatural pale cool skin around my much warmer hand. Not really sure what to do, I did the only thing I could really think of.

I placed my other hand on my meister's shouldder and gave him a gentle shake. "Coal. Coal wake up already."

No response.

Getting annoyed and feeling the vain pop in my head, "Coal Death! If you expect me to kiss you in order to wake you up you're mistaken! I'd rather hit you on the head again! Get up idiot!", I shouted at him annoyed that he was ignoring me.

**Coal's POV ~ **

_**"Coal Death! If you expect me to kiss you in order to wake you up you're mistaken! I'd rather hit you on the head again! Get up idiot!"**_

The sound of the familier threat snapped me out of my sleep and jolted me awake. My eyes instantly landed on the ash blond, red eyed girl glaring at me from her place in the hospital bed. She wasn't so pale anymore and her skin gave off normal healthy body heat. Whatever treatment Maka had given the weapon apparently worked like it was supposed too.

"Good you're up at last, everyone was really worried about you. I thought your old man was going to...", I started but the scythe cut me off abruptly.

Claire practically launched herself at me and I fell backwards, both of us heading and crashing into the Dispence room tiled floor.I felt arms wrap around me and pressure aginst my lips, before I was allowed to sit up and gawk at the red-eyed weapon sitting next to me with her arms still wrapped around me. "You know what Coal? For a Grim Reaper you're really not that bad. Hard headed sure, but I think I can fix that with a few slaps to teh head.", she smiled.

I blinkeed in confussed silence for a minute, before smirking and letting out a laugh of relief that my partner was okay and back to herself again. I pulled Claire into a tight hug, "Just don't beat my brain out and then take off like that again okay? I won't be able to save your but from a witch otherwise."

_WHACK!_

"WHAT THE HELL CLAIRE!?"

"HUMPH! YOU DESERVED THAT ONE COAL!"

Yep.

Definetly back to her old self again.. This was going to be a loooong relationship.

**Claire: That was a short chapter Wolf. You couldn't drag it out any longer then that?**

**Me: Not really. No.**

**Claire: You didn't even try.**

**Coal: Claire...carefull. There's still one more chapter, and I really don't want to save your but again from Wolf trying to kill you off.**

**Claire: What the hell would you say she was trying to do to me in the past five chapters then Coal, if she wasn't trying to kill me off?**


	20. The Ultimate Tag Team

**Does this chapter look familier to any of you? LOL!**

The figure ran through the darkened streets, ahead of him was some kind of creature. The creature was clearly female, her long greasy black hair completely covering her face and her nails were at least three inches long. Her pursuer, was younger-looking then she was...perhaps twelve or thirteen at the most. He was male with short cropped black hair and a black suit-like get up. On his right ring finger, he wore a ring in the shape of a skull. The boy continued to chase his target, before coming to an abrupt halt at the base of a flight of steps.

The creature had stoped to.

At the top of the stairs, stood a girl about the same age as the boy that had chased the creature to the steps. She wore a navy blue schoolgirl uniform and had long ashy blond hair in two pigtails. A thick red hairband, with black zig zag patturns on top of and under it along the edges in her hair. Her red eyes flashed as she smirked at the creature and boy, crossing her arms.

"Well its about time.", said the boy, "I was getting worried I'd have to catch this Kishin by myself."

The girl laughed, "You wish partner."

The creature growled and jumped at the girl with her claws out, "Nine-Inch Nails."

The girl only grinned and jumped up into the air, causing the creature to miss. She landed beside the boy.

"Enough with the showing off Claire. Let's finish this already.", said the black haired boy, as the creature turned to face the pair again.

"Yeah okay, I hear you Coal. Let's go!", the girl named Claire glowed a pale white, before she she was replaced by a scythe. The blade of the scythe was black on the top half, and was separated from it's lower silver half by a zig zag patterned line.

Coal caught the weapon and held it in front of him, "Kishin Fray D. Sadoko, in the name of the Grim Reaper your soul belongs to us."

The Kishin laughed and leapt at the Meister bringing its claws down to strike at the young Reaper. There was the sound of metal grinding against metal, as the Reaper brought up the black and silver blade to block the kishin's attack. "Pathetic.", Coal said, narrowing his eyes and pushing back against the Kishin. He forced the Kishin to back off and griped the pole of the scythe tighter.

"This is taking too long Coal.", Claire appeared on the side of the blade, "I thought you wanted to end this quickly."

Coal looked at the girl on the blade, "I do. You ready?"

The Weapon grinned up at her Meister, "Whenever you are."

The boy nodded. "Let's go! Soul Resonance!", they shouted in unison. The scythe blade glowed and expanded, before becoming straight with the two ends pointed in towards the Scythe Meister. "Now Coal!", yelled Claire at her partner.

The black haired boy slashed the scythe's glowing blade at the Kishin, "Witch Hunter!", he yelled, as the blade sliced the Kishin in half. When the young Reaper landed on his feet again, Claire reached out and grabbed the glowing red soul hoovering in front of them.

"Anouther success job and soul number 75. Great job, as useuall.", she grinned at her partner, before swallowing the soul. The two hadnt been working together for very long, yet it looked like they'd been partners for awhile. But they had grown up together, with their parents being close friends and all.

"That's all the souls we have to collect for tonight. We should head back to the Academy and report to our parents.", said Coal, heading up the flight of steps.

Claire soon caught up to the young Reaper as they headed through the dark streets again.

As the Weapon and Meiater pair left, a dark figure stood on top of a near by building watching them. "The son of the Grim Reaper and the daughter of the one with the Excorsim Wavelength. An obstical that needs to be cleared indeed."

Inside the Academy, the pair walked down the halls until they came to a large metal door. Claire knocked on the door, before the pair walked in.

After walking through a pathway of guillotine arches, the two stoped, "Dad.", said Coal. In the center of the room, stood five figures and all of them looked up when the pair walked into the room. Two men and three women: One of the men looked a lot like Coal, only with a skull ring on each hand and with three white stripes on one side of his hair. The other man had a bit more of a relaxed pose, white messy hair and red eyes like Claire's. Two of the women beside the black haired man both had blond hair and looked remarkably alike the other. The other had ashy blond hair pulled up int a neat bun, olive green eyes and a white nurse uniform over her attire. The women in the nurse uniform walked over to the two students and drew Claire into a hug.

The Weapon froze and rolled her eyes,"Mom.", she hissed slightly annoyed.

"How did it go? Looks like you two are making progress collecting souls.", said the man in the black suit, looking at Coal.

"We just collected soul number 75.", he replied.

"And we wanted to see if there were any other missions that we can do.", Claire huffed as she broke away from the school nurse, to rejoin the Meister.

"Well there is one mission.", said the white haired man, crossing his arms.

Claire's and Coal's heads snapped up and both looked at the adults carefully.

The school nurse looked at the the man, "That's too dangerous for one-star students like them Soul. They can't do it. They're not ready for something like that yet."

"Calm down Maka. It was only a suggestion.", Soul replied, "And if Kid thinks they can handle it, why not?"

"A suggestion that I like.", said Kid suddenly,"That's not a bad idea. Of course..Maka's right about it being difficult. I was going to send a three-star Weapon and Meister pair originally to take care of it."

Liz, Maka, Soul and Patty looks at the Grim Reaper for a minute.

"Come on Uncle Kid.", said Claire eager to know now,"Tell us about the mission."

"We can handle it ourselves dad.", agreed Coal, with a slightly boared look.

Kid sighed,"If you two are so sure you can handle it, then very well. There is a powerful Meister and his Weapon that used to come here to Death Weapon Meister Academy. He has recently gone rouge and started to hunt human souls with his partner. If they are not stoped for good soon, the Weapon is sure to become a Kishin and wreck havoc in Death City. That's one thing we can not allow."

"So our job is to find these guys and take them out?", said Claire, "Sounds easy enough. We'll make a quick job of it no problem."

"Just what kind of Weapon and Meister were these guys exactly?", asked Coal.

"Not that different from the two of you.", grinned Soul,"In fact...the Meister was a Scythe Meister. And I wouldn't be getting over confident if I were you, you might find this pair tougher then you think."

"We can handle it dad. Coming Coal?", asked Claire leaving the Death Room.

Coal shoved his hands in his pockets and fallowed his partner out of the room.

When the two left, Kid looked at Soul and Maka, "I know you're going to want to go easy on them, but don't. We need them pushed to their limits. That's the whole point of this after all."

Soul and Maka nodded, before leaving the Death Room.

Later on that night in the city~

"Oh man! Can't we head back already Coal? I mean, we've been walking around Death City for what feels like hours and these guys haven't showed up. Maybe it was a false alarm or something. I mean, it is possible that our parents got this wrong for once, right?", Claire walked next to Coal as they walked down the streets of Death City.

"It is possible, but not with something like this. Let's keep looking.", said Coal, "We have a duty to do as represenatatives of the DWMA. Besides, if we succeed then this will cunt as souls numbers 76 and 77. And you'll be that much closer to be a Death Scythe."

The girl sighed, "I hate it when you get so logical like that. You know that when you mention becoming a Death Scythe, that I can't say no."

Coal laughed. The pair walked down the streets a little longer, until Coal stoped suddenly.

Claire had just enough of a warning to stop from crashing into him. She stumbled back and found her balence again, "Coal! What are you...!?" But the Weapon didn't have time to finish, because the young Reaper cut her off.

"We're not alone anymore.", Coal looked up and turns around behind them,"There."

Both looked behind them, in time two see two dark figures facing them and not moving. "Think that's who we are looking for?", Claire asked. As if in response to the girl's question, one of the figures started to glow until he transformed into a scythe. The strange Meister caught the Weapon and twirled it, before resting it behind his shoulder.

"Claire.", the black haired boy didn't take his eyes off of the figure in front of them.

"On it.", Claire transformed into her weapon form and landed in her Meister's hands, before appearing on the blade, "Let's see whats so powerful about these two anyway."

The two Wepons and Meisters fought, but the DWMA students weren't getting very far. The Meister knocked Coal back and slashed at the young Reaper with the scythe. The black haired boy winced when he felt the blade make contact with his arm, before shoving himself away from the opposing Meister with Claire. "Damn it!", he hissed glancing at the cut. It was long, but didn't look very deep.

Claire appeared on the blade of the scythe and looked up at her Meister,"You okay Coal?", she asked worried about him.

Coal looked at her,"Im fine Claire, it's just a scratch. But these guys...they're stronger then we thought."

The opposing Meister laughed,"Let's end this. Soul Resonance!" The blade of the Meisters scythe, started to glow and grew into a large cresent moon-like shape, as the Meister charged the two Academy students, "Witch Hunter!"

"Coal! Gaurd!", yelled Claire, but her warning came too late.

The young Grim Reaper was thrown back and collapsed to the ground several feet away from the other Meister-Weapon pair.

"Coal!", yelled Claire, appearing on the silver and black blade again in a panic.

In the Death Room~

Patty looked at Kid, "Still, why pit them against Maka and Soul? They look like they have no idea who they are really fighting."

"That's because they don't. ", the Grim Reaper replied, "Claire and Coal have no idea they are fighting Soul and Maka. The goal of this remedial lesson isn't to see how strong they are...as a Grim Reaper Coal is strong enough on his own. But when you add Claire's abilities that she inherited from Maka and Soul...you get the idea. But they don't see that. The point of this remidial lesson is to try and get them to work together as a team. To use each others strengths to their advantage. Just because they can resonate souls with each other to use Witch Hunter, doesn't mean that they are truly working together. They are still just charging into the battle. They use Witch Hunter on a mere whim. I pit them against Soul and Maka, because the situations aren't that different from each other when you look at it closely." Kid looked from Patty to the mirror again to watch the battle, "Besides, since both Maka and Coal are Scythe Meisters it's the perfect test for the two. Not to mention Claire is Souls daughter and she is a scythe just like her father. Like I said, it's the perfect match up to truely test Coal's and Claire's skills and teamwork."

"You're pushing them this hard on purpose.", said Liz, "Is that smart Kid?".

Kid was silent as he watched the battle with narrowed eyes.

Back in the city streets~

Coal was panting hard, having just bearly dodged the opponent's Witch Hunter.

"Coal.", Clair appeared on the silver and black blade of the scythe and looked up at her Meister,"Our normal attacks won't work, not even Witch Hunter. "

"I know Claire and I've been thinking.", said the young Grim Reaper eyeing their opponents, "We've got to stop this pathetic excuse for a partnership."

Claire's eyes widened in worry,"What?! You want to brake up now!?"

"That's not what I meant Claire, women always jump to the wrong conclusions.", huffed the black haired boy,"I meant that our souls are resonating with each other, but its not working. We're not focused enough. What we're doing is the same as running into battle blind. We can't align our souls like your parents do, we need to change it up a little bit if we want to stop these guys."

Claire nodded, understanding what her partner was saying,"Yeah. Let's give it a try. Ready when you are."

Coal nodded and became silent for a moment, trying to focus on the Weapon's soul wavelength.

The older Scythe Meister looked at the Weapon in his hand and whispered a quick conversation with it, before looking at the two students. The figure leaped at the two students, "Witch Hu...!" A clang of metal as the large crescent shaped blade of the opponent's scythe, met with Claire's glowing pointed blade and stoped cold.

Death Room~

"They stoped the Witch Hunter this time?", said Liz, as she looked at the battle through the mirror.

"Yes but they're not done yet, far from it. Their souls are starting to expand again, but it's different then before.", Kid grinned,"Looks like they finally figured it out."

The fight~

Claire's blade looked different then it usually did. The top end of the scythe was curved like a crescent moon, and the blade was straight with three spikes at the bottom. The young Grim Reaper smirked, "Soul Hunter!" Coal made a slashing motion with Claire to send a skull-shaped blast at their opponents in a cloud of smoke. Coal leaped away from the blast breathing hard again, eyes on the smoke as it started to clear.

"Did we get them this time?", Claire asked, but stoped when the smoke cleared to reveal the Meister still standing and seeingly unharmed. "N-not even a scratch!? What's going on?", Claire stammered.

The older Scythe Meister took a few steps towards the two students smiling in silence before, "Well done you two, you both were off to a rocky start. But in the end you both managed to pull through. Had it been somebody else, or a normal kishin, that Soul Hunter of your's would have ended the battle in an instant."

Claire glowed and transformed, while Coal looked at the speaker conffussed.

"Passed?", asked Coal, "What are you talking about!? Who are you really!?"

"I can answer that one.", said Claire, looking at the older Meister, as the other Weapon transformed back into a human.

Both figures smirked.

"There's no real Meister and Weapon that are hunting human souls.", explained Claire, before looking from her partner to the two smirking figures, "Right...Mom. Dad."

Maka and Soul walked out into the light grinning at the stunned Reaper and the girl. "Well it's about time.", laughed Soul, crossing his arms, "What gave it away?"

"When you used Witch Hunter.", repleid Claire, "Witch Hunter is different for every Weapon-Meister pair. For you both it's taht cresent moon shape."

"Well done.", Soul nodded in approvel, "So you were paying attention in class after all. You are so like Maka."

Claire beamed.

Coal walked over and stoped beside Claire, eyeing the two adults with a carefull narrowed eyes. "Wait, so then this mean that this was just a Remedial Lesson?", he said now starting to understand things.

Maka nodded, "Right Coal. The point of the lesson was to cut you two down to size...humble you both a bit and knock that arrogance out of you both."

"Arrogance?", both students spoke at the same time.

"Yes arrogance.", confirmed Maka, "This wasn't about testing your strength iin a fight. We know you two are powerfull. But just because you can resonate with each other to use Witch Hunter, doesn't mean you are truely working together."

"Witch Hunter, and even Genie Hunter, aren't going to always work and your not always goign to have your partner with you.", added Soul, "Fighting a kishin isn't something to take lightly like you both have been untill now. We've been through plenty of situations where they are, literally, life or death and where we have had to make hard choices. All of us."

Claire turned to look at Coal, "Kind of like when we tried Soul Hunter. If we didn't make that move in time, I would have transformed and taken the hit. You still got hit though, some Weapon Partner I turned out to be.", she pointed to the cut on the young Reapers shoulder and laughed lightly.

Coal glanced at the cut from Souls blade and carefuly touched it,"It's just a scratch Claire, nothing to worry about. And I would have done the same for you...they're right though. We can't be so reckless anymore, we were lucky today that we were facing your parents and came out with only a scratch. It could have been worse. No more being so reckless?", he held out his hand to the girl.

The Weapon grinned and shook her Meisters hand,"Yeah."

Soul and Maka smiled at each other, before Maka turned back to the two students. "Okay you two, time to get back to the Academy. Lord Death would want to speak to you both, and I want to look at that cut anyway Coal.", said Maka.

"Yes Dr. Maka.", both students chorused as they fallowed the adults back to the DWMA.

As they fallowed the adults back to the Academy, the young Grim Reaper wrapped and arm around the scythe and pulled her to his side before placing his lips against her's and kissing her for a minute with a grin.

Claire laughed and rested her head on Coal's shoulder glancing up at him with a smile and nod, before looking abck at her parent's backs.

**And that's all she wrote folks...well for this fanfiction anyway. I had lots of fun with this and am glad that you all seemed to have liked it too. Untill I see you on my other fanfictions! **

**Wolf signing off!**


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